Corazones y Cazadores
by Totenkinder Madchen
Summary: Cobra's interest in an archaeological site in the Andes quickly turns into something much worse for the Joes. Normally, the enemies they face are less ... bitey. COMPLETE.
1. Tango Team

**Author's Note:** This one is exclusively the fault of Twitter and the devious geniuses who lurk therein. I can't say too much about what I was discussing with CrystalOfEllinon, Dragogirl13, Karama9, and willwrite4fics (because it would give too much away, though I think the mere fact of this fic's placement in the crossover section will do that for me) but suffice it to say that it was wonderfully, beautifully insane and inspiring.

If you're a G.I. Joe fan and know next to nothing about the world of _Aliens, Predator, _or _Alien vs. Predator, _don't worry—neither do the Joes! It'll be explained to you as it is explained to them. Suffice it to say that there will be blood. Glowy green blood and acidic alien blood, to be specific.

**Rating:** T for now. May climb to M in future due to violence.

**Disclaimer: **G.I. Joe is the property of Hasbro, Inc. The Aliens and Predator franchises are property of 20th Century Fox Entertainment. I derive no profit from the use of these characters and concepts, and have received no compensation. Please accept this work in the spirit with which it is offered—as a work of respect and love, not an attempt to claim ownership or earn money from these intellectual properties.

* * *

**Corazones y Cazadores**

_by Totenkinder Madchen_

_

* * *

_

**Chapter One: Tango Team**

_Prologue_

Scarlett's first thought was that Cobra Commander had finally gone off the deep end.

Sure, he'd never been all there, but the redheaded Intel agent had spent enough time studying and countering the man that she knew there was intelligence hidden under the plastique-laced helmet and egotistical ranting. But if he was responsible for the thing now facing them, gleaming with slime in the half-light of the crumbled corridor . . . well, then she had either overestimated his intelligence or underestimated his sheer balls.

* * *

_ Seventy-two hours earlier . . . _

"Looks like something out of an Indiana Jones movie," Tunnel Rat said thoughtfully as he eyed the image projected against the wall. A couple of Joes threw irritated glances his way, but they were half-hearted at best; Scarlett was willing to bet that most of them had been thinking the same thing. After all, it _did _look like something from a movie rather than a mission briefing. Deserted temples weren't usually in their line of work.

"Well, if we're lucky, there won't be any cultists or pit traps," Scarlett said, clicking a button on the slide projector. "Just Cobra."

The image flickered, replaced by a grainy photograph from an old newspaper. The photograph showed two elderly men, both smiling broadly; one held up an intricately-painted clay pot, and the other displayed what appeared to be a curved and notched spearpoint.

"In 1932, in a remote valley on the edge of the Andes range—now part of Chile—a mountaineering party discovered what its members called _un templo de corazones y de cazadores. _'A temple of hearts and hunters.'"

"Hearts?" asked Chuckles curiously. "Temple of a love goddess or something?"

"Hearts as in organs." Scarlett's grimace spoke volumes. "The expedition's members had no cameras, but two of the mountaineers were amateur archaeologists, and they brought back some very striking artifacts." She tapped one long finger against the image of the spear. "Artifacts which, if real, would turn our timeline of civilization's development completely upside-down.

"Unfortunately, nobody was ever able to substantiate their claims. That winter was extremely bad, and in a series of avalanches—partially set off by over-eager treasure hunters looking for the temple—all those _corazones y cazadores _were believed to be destroyed."

Scarlett took a moment to pause and glance around the briefing room. The handful of Joes present were looking back at her with mixed expressions—curiosity, minor confusion, anticipation, and in one white-clad ninja's case, boredom. All of those present were experienced soldiers, though, and they knew they hadn't been brought there just for a history lesson. Nobody, not even Tunnel Rat, interrupted. They trusted that she would get to the point soon enough: namely, _where does Cobra come in?_

"This temple is a significant archaeological find." Scarlett clicked to the next slide. "Notice that I say _is, _because it's been rediscovered. A team sponsored by the United Nations has been combing the area for the past year and a half, and they've found the remains of the temple. Most of the surface structure has been destroyed by the harsh weather, but the team confirmed that a complete substructure still exists."

The next slide showed a newer photograph, one that elicited a few groans and one mumbled obscenity from the gathered team. It was a long-distance surveillance shot of a man in a heavy parka, a tartan scarf protecting the parts of his neck that his gleaming metal mask didn't.

"Just like it says on the package—United Nations projects tend to be multinational. And the chief sponsor for this archaeological expedition was the sovereign nation of Cobra Island." Scarlett clicked to the next slide, which showed Destro now looking distinctly unhappy as he argued with a man in a U.N. parka. "Right after establishing themselves as an independent nation, Cobra made a few attempts at trying to look legitimate. They decided to try and raise their public profile by sponsoring cultural restoration projects and expeditions, including the team that rediscovered the temple. Since that team originally set out, though, Cobra's reputation is back in the gutter where it belongs, and now the whole project is being held in escrow while the U.N. argues over who owns the site."

Scarlett crossed her arms and turned back to the assembled Joes. "The site has been temporarily cleared, not counting a small UN-backed military security force to guard the area against treasure hunters. Cobra Island is currently trying to play nice, going through the legal channels in order to gain legitimate control of the site, but we all know that's not going to last long. The head of the United Nations Security Council has issued a quiet request for an on-site Joe team, to guard against possible Cobra action. Questions?"

There was a moment of silence, then a rumble from the back of the briefing room. Beach Head crossed his arms, his skepticism plain on his face. "We're going to be security guards?" He glanced around the room, which was currently occupied by—among other people—himself and both of the Joes' ninjas. "Ah get the impression we're assemblin' an invasion force."

"That's because it might be." Scarlett nodded to Lady Jaye. "Jaye's deep intel contacts have almost-definite evidence that Cobra will do anything to get hold of that site. It's highly probable that they've already got personnel on the ground there, including Dreadnoks and Red Ninjas."

Tunnel Rat barked out a laugh. "Dreadnoks in the Andes? I'd like to see that-"

"And you probably will," Storm Shadow interjected. The mention of the Red Ninjas had put a hard edge into his voice, but as ever, his demeanor was outwardly calm. "Why does Cobra want this so badly? The Commander deals in a specific breed of megalomania, and a temple is much too intellectual for him."

"Evidence suggests that Destro and the Baroness are actually the driving forces here," Scarlett replied, motioning to the projection, "or at least were in the beginning. Cobra needs better P.R., fast, and excavating a find like this would get their public-spiritedness and respect for culture lauded in the academic world. And," she added, a small smile quirking her lips, "there's something for everyone."

The next slide clicked into place, displaying a grainy '30s photograph of a handwritten letter. Two lines were highlighted in bright yellow. "'Repeated iconic imagery, striking and absolutely terrifying,'" she read aloud. "'Again and again, the figure of the serpent . . . the natives must have been truly in fear of these animals.'" There was a collective groan from the Joe team, and Scarlett nodded, still smiling.

"Good old Cobra Commander," Outback muttered. "Maybe we'll get lucky and he'll wind up buried there, along with all the other outdated junk."

"We can only hope." Scarlett said dryly. "Whatever the outcome, though, this is an intel-lead operation, which means that our visible presence needs to be low-key. However, we'll still have to field a lot of firepower quickly if—or most likely, when—things get hot." She crossed her arms and surveyed the assembled team. "We'll be going in looking like normal peacetime troops, mingling with the rest of the troops on-site. As Intel, Jaye and I have the lead on this. She'll be serving as our chief translator as well."

It only took Scarlett a moment to hand around everyone's orders. Given the situation, she was willing to bet that they had already guessed why they were there, but protocol was protocol and this was a rather unusual op for them.

Tunnel Rat: invaluable when staking out the subterranean temple itself. In addition to being an enthusiastic tunneler, he had also spent a lot of his off-time exploring archaeological sites. Alpine: expert mountaineer, exactly the kind of man they needed on a tricky operation in the foothills of the Andes. Outback: survival expert, not to mention well-acquainted with the art of vanishing into the scenery. Chuckles: even better at blending than Outback, and an excellent undercover man with a gregarious personality that could subtly wring information out of anyone he was presented with. (Scarlett had personally recommended him to Hawk for the mission. She remembered the woefully underprepared and unwary UN peacekeeping troops from previous missions, and would bet good money that Chuckles would have them eating out of his hand in no time.)

And of course, Beach Head, Lifeline, and the ninjas. Those selections pretty much spoke for themselves.

"Get some rest, everyone," she said when the last set of orders had been distributed. "We're going to be on the plane to Chile at 0500 tomorrow."

* * *

Scarlett hated alarm clocks. Growing up in a house with several loud, active brothers, she could always rely on something to wake her up early—whether it be an early-morning tussle, a dropped plate, or Sean thinking it was funny to test his youngest sister's reflexes by jumping on her bed at six o'clock in the morning. To Scarlett, being shaken out of deep REM by a shrill, mechanical beeping seemed an awful way to wake up. Clock radios weren't much better: hearing the cheerful chatter of an early-morning DJ telling his listeners to "rise and shine with KPRX, the Sunshine Station in the heart of the nation!" only ensured that the redheaded martial artist would wake up feeling murderous.

Fortunately, she had been able to dispense with the hated alarm clock after a couple of years in G.I. Joe. Being woken up by a ninja—even a ninja who occasionally used an alarmingly sharp elbow to do it—was even better than awakening to the melodious sound of squabbling brothers.

But having this particular ninja as her personal bed-warmer had other advantages as well. Behind the formidable mask, Snake-Eyes was a smart man with a good heart: someone who had been through more pain and loss than any human being should rightfully have to suffer, but who had managed to cling to his sanity and even his sense of humor. She knew that she was something of an anchor for him; once, in a very close moment, he had admitted as much to her. And while she kept the scarred ninja centered, he reciprocated by lending order to her sometimes chaotic thought process.

She found him meditating on their bed when she returned to their room after chow. He had locked the door so that he could remove his mask in comfort, but Scarlett slipped through quickly enough that nobody casually passing by could have seen a glimpse of his face. He glanced up as she locked the door behind her, a small smile quirking the scarred lips.

[Spit it out,] he signed, never rising from the lotus position he had comfortably folded himself into.

Scarlett glowered, but without malice. "You're psychic, aren't you."

[Fear the mystic powers of the ninja. No, I just know you. Nervous about the op?]

"A little too much." She settled onto the bed next to him, stretching out with a sigh. No lotus for her: in her unguarded moments, she preferred to sprawl. "Having an intel-led mission is unusual."

[You can't tell me you're uncomfortable with command.] There was an odd panting noise from the ninja, one which Scarlett recognized as his laugh.

She rolled over and grinned a little tiredly at him. "If this turns into a comment about me being bossy, mister, you're sleeping on the rug." Snake-Eyes folded his hands and pretended to bow contritely to her, making her laugh in return and imitate the gesture grandly. "Rise, you are forgiven. And, no, I'm not uncomfortable. I've led a few teams in my time. The truth is, I just don't like operating on this kind of terrain. I've read file after file about the environment, the weather, the likely floor plan of the temple. Jaye and I have put our heads together with Psyche-Out-" A soft snort from the ninja. "Yes, I know you can't stand him, but he knows what he's doing. We've come up with a list of likely moves for the Cobra forces, depending on whether they're there already yet and who they send in to secure the site."

[So what's the problem?]

" . . . An ancient mountain temple, Snake?" Scarlett shook her head.

Snake-Eyes spread his hands, his version of an "Aah" of acknowledgment. [Unfamiliar terrain.]

"Plus the possibility that we'll most likely wind up damaging an incredibly valuable piece of human history." Scarlett stretched again and sighed. "I did the research, Snake. If the original discoverers were correct in their observations, there's some breathtaking things down there. One of the archaeologists swore that he saw elements of Aztec influence in the structure."

There was a moment of profound silence from her lover, and Scarlett couldn't restrain a laugh at that. It seemed to be one of the unwritten parts of the ninja code: if you didn't know something, you never, ever admitted it. Snake-Eyes bore her humor with patience, although he cocked an eyebrow at her grin.

[I presume you told me that for a reason?] he signed finally, a hint of a smile on his own face. She knew he didn't know, and he knew that she knew he didn't know (Scarlett took a moment to mentally parse that thought), but he was willing to play along.

"Snake, the Aztecs were mainly located in Central America. Chile is in South America—Inca territory." Scarlett pulled herself back into a sitting position, twisting her neck until she felt the vertebrae crack back into place. "If an Incan-era temple showed strong Aztec influence, it could potentially rewrite the history of the Americas."

Snake-Eyes, a student of an ancient clan of shadow warriors and the personal bogeyman of thousands of hardened terrorists, wasn't terribly impressed. "It gets better, though," Scarlett added. "The other archaeologist was convinced that he saw Egyptian elements."

That got a bit more of a reaction—a skeptical, silent laugh. [Thin air in the mountains,] Snake-Eyes signed. [Did he also see the Loch Ness Monster?]

"At this point, it wouldn't surprise me." Scarlett shook her head a little. "But this is a major find. If we manage to destroy it, the Jugglers won't be looking at the BATs we dig out of the rubble; they'll be issuing press releases to cover their own asses, and the international media will have a field day with 'loose-cannon Americans destroy priceless cultural treasure!'"

[So . . . an intel-led mission on unfamiliar terrain with the whole world watching if we screw it up.] Snake-Eyes, the experienced soldier and assassin-commando, eyed his girlfriend and assessed the situation expertly. [Neck rub?]

"Oh God, please." Scarlett leaned back against Snake, closing her eyes blissfully as his skilled hands went to work. "You are earning so many brownie points right now . . ." One smooth stroke trailed down the nape of her neck, making the nerves tingle pleasurably. "And if you do that again, I swear to God you can have anything on the face of the planet when this mission is done." Another stroke. "Anything . . . at . . . all."

[I can do one better,] he signed into the skin of her shoulder. There was a brush of scarred lips against the the flesh of her neck, and Scarlett forgot everything, including her own name and address.

* * *

The unofficially-named Tango Team (Tango for T, T for Temple) fell out at 0415 the next morning. Scarlett, as the senior of the two Intel agents in charge, briskly and efficiently inspected the small team in the predawn light of the aircraft hangar. Hawk's orders were specifically to not take chances. The team was extremely well-equipped, but they would be putting on an appearance as another normal set of peacekeeping troops, and they would be in regulation gear from the beginning of the mission onwards.

Inwardly, Scarlett smiled at how odd it was to see everyone dressed in uniform. A few years in G.I. Joe sure changed your perception of what was normal for a soldier; seeing Lifeline in normal cammies, or Beach Head without his sweater and balaclava, was downright strange. Even the dog tags were new, since their normal Joe tags conformed to the secrecy statutes by giving their code names, and those code names wouldn't be used while the team was playing it quiet. The normal-sounding names printed on the tags were as fake as the code names they normally went by. In deference to their intended function, though, each set of faux tags had an implanted microdot which contained their real information.

She paced the line of Joes, checking each of them over for minute errors in the disguise. Snake-Eyes' prosthetic face was perfect—after so many years applying it, he had gotten depressingly good at making it look realistic—and he and Storm Shadow both passed muster without comment. Thanks to his customary balaclava, Beach Head's unmasked face had the beginnings of an odd reverse-raccoon tan effect, and Scarlett made a mental note to introduce him to the wonders of liquid concealer. (He was definitely an Autumn.) Lifeline's raccoon tan line was of the normal kind, and Tunnel Rat needed only a reminder about the use of hair gel. Alpine and Chuckles were impeccable. Outback, on the other hand, seemed to radiate some kind of internal scruffiness field, and Scarlett promised herself that she would sic Beach Head on him about that.

Nobody even bothered checking Jaye.

"Remember," she said, surveying the group, "from this moment on, we are not G.I. Joe. Orders come from me—Sgt. Theresa Dietrich—or Cpl. Ellen Cameron." Jaye nodded back to her. "If you need ninja backup, call for PFCs Soto or Levy. We have some leeway on the transport, but once we land in Santiago, it's new names only. Hawkins?" There was a moment of silence before Lifeline snapped back into focus at the sound of his _nom de mission. _"Stick by our newly-minted Pvt. Levy. Do all the talking for him whenever possible. If anyone asks, he's still recovering from a period of bronchitis and, while noninfectious, has been ordered to maintain silence. Baffle them with medical jargon if need be."

She spotted a bit of movement out of the corner of her eye. Lift-Ticket, as benignly attired as the rest of them, was talking to the ground crew and running his own inspection checklist on the transport plane. Scarlett turned back to her team and took a shallow breath, mentally realigning herself. Mission time.

"Tango team—fall out!"

Next stop, South America.


	2. Keeping the Peace

**Author's Note:** Setting the scene, and introducing some characters. I think these bits were actually harder to write than most of the rest of the story . . . Monsters? Easy to write. People? Not so much. But I guess you gotta set 'em up before you can knock 'em down.

Please note that this chapter contains some disparaging remarks at the expense of the UN peacekeeping forces. Please, let's not turn this into a political debate; I'm not demanding the dissolution of the UN or calling the peacekeepers idiots. The criticisms about preparedness come courtesy of my brothers, who have served in both the Army and USMC and gave me a lot of information about the kinds of chaos that can result when you have a lot of nations all trying to work together. And frankly, every force is going to contain argumentative types.

**Rating:** T for now. May climb to M in future due to violence.

**Disclaimer: **G.I. Joe is the property of Hasbro, Inc. The Aliens and Predator franchises are property of 20th Century Fox Entertainment. I derive no profit from the use of these characters and concepts, and have received no compensation. Please accept this work in the spirit with which it is offered—as a work of respect and love, not an attempt to claim ownership or earn money from these intellectual properties.

* * *

**Chapter Two: Keeping the Peace**

A good commercial flight from Dallas to Santiago, the capital of Chile, could take about eight hours. Commercial travelers, however, didn't have access to G.I. Joe's budget or technology. At approximately 1100 hours, Pit time, the troop transport deposited Tango Team at the temporary United Nations airfield in Santiago.

The city was located on a plateau smack-dab in the middle of the mountains, but the team wasn't there for sightseeing. They said goodbye to Lift-Ticket and double-timed it to the helicopter pad, where one Lt. Juarez (an old friend of Wild Bill's) was waiting with a long-distance closed-cabin chopper and a knowing glance at "Soto" and "Levy." Scarlett, now firmly in the skin of Sgt. Dietrich, got everyone stowed away with brisk military efficiency and took her own spot in the chopper.

Once they were in the air, the team reviewed the situation. There had been sketchy maps of the temple complex in their orders packets—the best maps available at the time—and now Scarlett produced another and went over it until she was satisfied that everyone knew every nook and cranny of the area.

"Below sixty feet, though," she said, pointing to a fuzzy spot on the map, "there's no real information. A team spotted ramps and corridors heading down below that mark, but the politicians pulled them out before they could get anywhere. Cpl. Cameron, you're the egghead in this crew; what did you say about tunnels?"

Lady Jaye, now sporting a dark-brown bob and a soft Midwestern accent, grinned back at her. "Guilty as charged, sarge," she replied. Lady Jaye was sharp, but Ellen Cameron was also impertinent. "Permission to speak freely?"

"Granted. That's why I got saddled with you, isn't it?" Scarlett allowed just a bit of Beach Head attitude to creep into her voice, further separating her character from that of Shana O'Hara. It felt odd to be deliberately rude to Jaye, but it wasn't the strangest thing she'd ever done undercover.

"Okay, then." Jaye put a finger on the map. "Everybody says this temple's gone undisturbed for fifty or sixty years, right? Never happen. Archaeology is a big-bucks business, and it has been for a looooong time. Back in the 1880s, the British used to find new Egyptian tombs by checking to see which locals were getting inexplicably rich." Scarlett/Dietrich made an impatient noise, and Jaye sped up. "The point is, now that most of the archaeologists are off-site, any sticky-fingered types who know about the place are going to take the opportunity to try and score themselves some pesos. Those lower levels are going to be our job to check out—and secure."

It was a pretty good cover story. A handful of the most important people on the site were aware that they had Joes incoming, and between General Hawk and the head of the Security Council, Tango Team had more than enough pull to get themselves placed right where the Cobras would most likely be hiding out. And from the sit-reps that the Joes had received, not many of the rank-and-file on the ground was strictly anticipating an influx of snake-themed terrorists; swapping "treasure hunters" for "Cobra Vipers" in casual conversation would let them plan aloud in safety.

As the chopper crested a low ridge, sunlight streamed into the capsule, making the Joes blink and interrupting Jaye's briefing. Several members of Tango Team scrambled for the windows, not quite able to restrain smiles at the sight laid out before them.

Scarlett herself didn't hesitate in joining them at the window. She had seen a lot in her years with G.I. Joe, including locales far more exotic than the foothills of the Andes, but the team rarely had the chance to appreciate the view; more often than not they were flown in under the cover of night, or extracted at high speed by pilots wearing flak jackets and providing cover fire. Snake-Eyes shifted a little, making room for her at one of the small ports, and she smiled a bit herself as she got her first look at the site.

It was a deep-walled valley, created not by glaciers but by the simple fact that mountains will never cleanly fit together. This far above sea level, there were no more jungles; rock and soil and coarse scrub blended together in sheer walls of browns and and blacks, with broad strokes of ash-gray in places where slopes had simply crumbled away into cliffs. The very tips of the highest mountains were flecked with snow, which glowed almost orange in the afternoon sun. The sky above was a heartbreaking ice-blue, completely free of clouds and looking too perfect to be real. Below them, a bird wheeled on the wind, its feathers spread to compensate as it fought the backwash of the chopper's passage.

And there below them, spread out across the shallowest of the slopes, was the temple. Tunnel Rat gave up pretending to be a cool customer and plastered himself against the window to get a better look.

The remains of the temple certainly reminded Scarlett of what she had read about the Aztecs. It was laid out in a simple square, with the crumbled remnants of what have must been forests of columns lining a broad ramp up to the first level of a steppe pyramid. Over half of it was clean gone, buried under a slew of square-cut rocks that once have must formed the upper storeys, but from the air it was easy to imagine what must have once been there.

Not to mention what was there now. Tiny figures swarmed around the base of the pyramid, loading, unloading, and guarding vehicles that looked smaller than Hot Wheels. A vast, clean-swept area in front of the temple ramp still showed the remains of rough stone tiles, and must have once been the place for supplicants to gather; now it was where the helicopters landed. Every spare bit of flat land not already staked out by the archaeologists was now crowded by trailers, field stations, and mass-produced ten-man tents with the logo of the United Nations on them. Scarlett felt her heart sink as she spotted one particular trailer with half-a-dozen satellite dishes on the roof: if the newspeople were still on-site, then the area was not as clear as the Joes had been led to believe. There were still far too many civilians for safety.

Lt. Juarez's chopper deposited Tango Team at the edge of the clean-swept area. He wouldn't be sticking around; supplies, troops, and equipment were in constant need of being flown in or out, and unless the Joes wanted to hijack another vehicle, they would be effectively marooned at the temple site. Scarlett acknowledged the lieutenant with a salute, which he mirrored with more respect than he would normally accord one more sergeant. The knowing wink was slightly more surprising . . . But, well, he was a friend of Wild Bill's. The redhead allowed herself a quick smile back before stepping back into character.

"All right, let's move!" she called out, slinging her heavy pack onto her shoulder. "Just because the air's thinner up here doesn't mean anybody's got a license to slack. I want all of us on Admin's doorstep in five minutes!" The Joes slung their own bags and picked up the pace easily, falling into a formation jog with the quickness of long practice. Another note for Scarlett's mission log: _teach Joes how to act less competent. _

Camp Carter, as a hand-lettered sign on the temporary fence proclaimed it, was a hodgepodge affair. In addition to all the regular military units there, nine different nations had also donated troops specifically to the peacekeeping and security forces—some probably hoping to scoop a bit of good PR for themselves as well. But while the troops handed specifically to the peacekeepers reported directly to their UN commanders, the regular military units answered to their nation's senior man on site. And none of them were playing nice with each other: as the Joes double-timed it across the uneven ground, they saw soldiers and equipment from more than half of those nations, all moving about on missions of their own. None of them were moving very quickly, either. There was no visible evidence of inter-service cooperation—something that left the Joes, who had spent a lot of time learning how to work with everyone from the Oktober Guard to (delete as necessary) those damn squids/jarheads/dogfaces/Chair Forcers—rather surprised. For a moment, Scarlett was sorely tempted to speed Tango Team up and show up the lackluster soldiers, but she quashed it and kept her group moving at a regular pace. _Note to self: too much Beach Head in character. _

But no matter how out of place any of them felt, a new post was a new post, and there were routines to follow. First stop, as ever: the Admin office.

Admin, haven to what Leatherneck usually referred to as "office bitches," was the same in every camp and base all over the world. There would be a captain or a lieutenant in charge, probably hands-off, with two or three bureaucrats presiding over a team of NCOs and junior enlisteds who did most of the work. Scarlett left Tango Team under Jaye's eye and stepped into the makeshift office, snapping a crisp salute.

"Sgt. Dietrich reporting in, sir. Command of eight specialists out of Benning."

"Specialists," repeated the man behind the desk. He was a burly fellow with a master sergeant's stripes, but there was a wan, drawn look to him and his tan had taken on the gray tinge that signaled a habitual outdoorsman stuck inside too long. Scarlett guessed at an incapacitating injury (there was no other good reason a master sergeant should be driving a desk at Admin) and her guess was borne out when he shifted a little and winced at a pain in his ribs. "That's never a good sign," he continued. "Orders?"

Scarlett handed them over, and the man flipped through the packet, raising an eyebrow. "Weren't kidding," he said, signing off on one of the copies and handing it back to Scarlett. "Col. Folkes told the office you were coming in today. You're scheduled to meet with him at 1800 hours." He shuffled through another set of papers, and made a soft "humph" noise as he found what he was looking for. "Your people are billeted in D16, on the west corner of the site. Chow hall is communal, so if any of your men are gonna have a problem eating with the Soviets or the Chinese, confine 'em to quarters _now. _Any questions?"

"No, sir."

"Good. You'll be meet the colonel in the executive office. Can't miss it; it's right by the media tent." His expression spoke volumes, but volumes of what Scarlett couldn't be sure yet. "You'll get schedules and orders from him. Carry on."

"Yes sir!" Scarlett snapped off another salute, making the master sergeant smile. When she turned to go, though, he called her back.

"Oh, and sergeant?" he said. "Look out for the serpents."

" . . . Sir?"

"Local legend," he said, still with a hint of a smile. "Some of the security force was recruited from the police force in the nearest towns, and the 'black serpent' is their version of the Loch Ness Monster."

" . . . Ah." Scarlett paused just long enough to let him feel that the joke had fallen flat. "I'll do that, sir." She felt a little twinge as he sensed the awkwardness and slid back into quiet depression, but it wouldn't do for Sgt. Dietrich to be showing an interest in a local legend about snakes. She left, her mind already turning over this new information.

* * *

"Gawddamn pogues," Beach Head muttered to no one in particular as he dropped his pack onto his assigned bunk. "Ah can't believe what Ah'm seein' here. Ain't they got nobody makin' 'em shape up?"

D16 was an odd beast of a structure, half tent and half quonset hut, and Beach Head had to pitch his voice low to prevent his voice from being heard on the other side of the thin canvas walls. No power in the world, though, would stop him from getting irritated at what he had seen.

Storm Shadow, who had drawn the short straw and gotten the rack above him, frowned and stuck his head over the edge to peer at the big Alabaman. "There's some degree of disorderliness, yes, but that's inevitable in an operation like this. You have to make reasonable demands of the personnel, _Kavanaugh."_

The code name was intended as a subtle jab, something to remind Beach Head to pull in his horns and not do something that might blow their cover, but Beach himself seemed to have taken the state of the camp as a personal insult. "Ah don't buy none of that, _Soto," _he shot back as he unpacked and stowed his gear. "Professional is professional, no matter where yer stationed."

"A bad master can only produce a bad student. Command clearly doesn't know what they're doing here."

"Does anybody else here see the irony of Sto—Soto telling Kavanaugh to _not _be hard on someone?" Tunnel Rat observed from his own rack. Storm Shadow just smirked at him, making the tunneler shake his head. "Honestly. Somebody check outside for the horsemen of the Apocalypse."

"I'm with Kavanaugh on this one." That was Alpine, who had been fairly quiet thus far. "It's plain sloppy. Inter-nation ops are always a crap shoot, and you could expect some friction between forces and branches, but nobody's working together out there. They're making a heroic effort to fail independently." He pulled an oblong bundle out of his pack and began to unwrap it, revealing a set of pitons, a mallet, harnesses, and a climbing axe.

Storm Shadow leaned across the narrow aisle, angling for a better look. "_Nice. _Hey, Levy, what do you think you could do with one of these?" Quick as a wink, he lifted it out of the surprised Alpine's hands and tossed it into the air, neatly catching it again before it nicked a ceiling light. His smile turned to a frown as he examined it more closely. "Though I suspect Levy would start by taking better care of it. This thing is in disgraceful shape. Nicks _and _scratches?"

"It's a climbing axe, Soto." Alpine reached for the axe, and Storm let him have it back. "It gets stuck into rocks. Rocks are harder than the stuff you two like to stab."

"Oh, you'd be surprised."

Alpine shot a glance at Lifeline, who was quietly double-checking an astonishing amount of emergency supplies. "Hey, Hawkins. Bone density versus rock density?"

"Don't even think about getting me involved," the little medic said evenly. "You know my rule about getting into fights."

"This isn't a fight," Storm Shadow interjected. "It's a civilized discussion."

"You're involved. That makes it a fight." Lifeline, secure in the position of being the man who saved ninjas from mortal wounds, only smiled a little and tried to duck as Storm Shadow soft-lobbed a ball of paper at him. He wasn't nearly quick enough, though, and the ball bounced off the back of his head. Storm tsked.

"Don't change the fact that this camp's a disgrace," Beach Head interjected, not to be deterred from the issue at hand. "The climber's right. They don't even got the excuse of bein' tripped by somebody else. An' we're supposed to _secure _this damn place? Ah wouldn't trust none o' them pogues we saw to secure a gawddamn box of crackers."

Outback, stretched out on his own rack, lazily opened one eye. "What kind of crackers?"

"What?"

"What kind of crackers?"

"Why in the sam hill would the gawddamn kind of crackers even matter? It was a gawddamn metaphor!"

"Some kinds of food attract more wildlife than others." Everybody knew Outback was just yanking Beach's chain at this point, but nobody was going to interrupt; that would mean missing the floor show. "Zwieback, for example, is dry and unsweetened, and not likely to be scented by anything too big. If you're talking cinnamon grahams, though, those soldiers are going to be beating off the bears in no time flat. In that case, yeah, I definitely wouldn't trust them to secure the box."

Beach growled a little. "Y'know, the point of a gawddamn metaphor ain't to be nitpicked. It's just a damn fancy way t'make a point, not to make an accurate comparison. That's a _simile's_ job, ya damned idiot!"

There was a moment of surprised silence, and the big Ranger grinned. "What, Ah ain't allowed to have an intellectual side? I was valedictorian of my class, y'know."

"What the heck kind of class was-" Tunnel Rat began. Before he could complete the sentence, though, another stare from Storm Shadow froze him solid in his bunk. Everybody in G.I. Joe knew that look: it was the one that said "you're going to stop right there, because if you go any further, somebody is going to have to hurt you purely out of principal. It will be because you're treading on territory that should not be tread on. And if you're _lucky, _it won't be me doing the hurting."

Storm had very expressive expressions.

It was to this scene, somewhat quiet and a little awkward, that Scarlett opened the frame door. She had gone to have a word with another one of the bureaucrats in Admin—the usual precursors, required to make sure Tango Team was on the books for things like food and access to the armory—and after burrowing through what felt like a whole country's full of red tape, her own expression was less than cheerful.

"Private Kavanaugh," she said quietly, keeping her voice even, "your volume control stinks."

"Sorry, sergeant," Beach Head replied contritely. Everybody got the unspoken message and strove to look busy, finishing with the process of stowing their gear and in general doing their best not to do anything that would draw any kind of attention whatsoever.

Scarlett was privately grateful for that. Admin had left her with the beginnings of a headache, and the next minute likely wouldn't do much to alleviate it. She settled onto her own rack, second-furthest from the door (the first-furthest being the automatic property of Snake-Eyes), and fished in her own pack. "Kavanaugh," she called out. "Come here for a minute?"

"Sarge?" Beach said cautiously, putting down his own gear. She beckoned to him, and he shuffled a little closer, eyebrow raised skeptically.

"Kavanaugh, your tan line is much too noticeable." Scarlett pulled a small tube and a strange circle of plastic out of her pack. "This?" She held up the tube. "Is liquid concealer. This?" The plastic circle. "Is a powder compact. They're going to be your best friends from now on. Got it?"

There was another moment of silence, this one more profound than the prior one. Scarlett's mood picked up noticeably as Beach Head goggled at the items in her hands.

"Sca—sarge-what d'you mean?"

"Come on, Kavanaugh. Think of it as camo paint." She beckoned him forward again, and he moved extremely reluctantly.

"It's _makeup." _Beach looked at the compact as if it was going to bite him.

"No, I told you, it's camo paint." Scarlett popped the compact open. "Camo paint turns people into scenery. Makeup turns people into attractive people." There was a cynical snicker from Jaye at that, and Scarlett threw a half-humorous glare her way. "Can it, Cameron, you know it's true. Okay, now you want to start with a base layer of concealer. Dab it on with a fingertip, like this . . ."

* * *

At 1715 hours, Tango Team headed for the communal mess. The different nations' troops were all under separate command, but the logistics of bunking a few hundred men from separate countries were much less difficult than the logistics of feeding those same men, and the commands had apparently bowed to the demands of the cooks. Several long tents (more pavilions, really, with open sides and waterproof canopies) had been set up to protect the close-packed tables, and snaking halfway around the whole area was the longest chow line the Joes had ever seen. They joined the queue quietly, one or two of them mournfully eyeing the men walking past with trays of multicolored slop. Alpine muttered Roadblock's name like an invocation against evil, or possibly indigestion.

Once they'd gotten their food, though, they separated. Outback and Chuckles were the first to go, each of them having specific assignments to fulfill. Chuckles, with a broad grin and couple of off-color jokes, quickly burrowed his way into a group of NCOs like a particularly cheerful intestinal parasite. (One of Beach Head's _favorite_ similes regarding the undercover operative.) Scarlett had had a quick word with Outback before they left the tent-cabin, and now he took his tray and headed for the table where the woefully-outnumbered regional police were gathered. If he just so happened to express an interest in legends about serpents? Well, that was his business.

Alpine and Tunnel Rat, operating out of simple enthusiasm rather than intel-gathering, joined a group of the remaining archaeologists and begin fishing madly information about the temple itself. That left Jaye, Scarlett, and Lifeline to ride herd on Beach Head, Snake-Eyes, and Storm Shadow.

The place was packed. Eventually, the six of them squeezed into places at one end of a table mostly occupied by UN peacekeeping troops. The peacekeepers had been drawn from a number of different countries, and several of them chatted quietly with their fellows in a variety of languages. Jaye caught Scarlett's eye and nodded almost imperceptibly, confirming that she was covertly eavesdropping on the multilingual conversation.

"Where you guys from?" a brash Boston accent asked. The Joes looked up. One of the nearest men, a tall skinny man with incongruously broad shoulders and short-cropped bright red hair, was grinning at them—or, more accurately, at Scarlett, who was in plain olive-drab and sans stripes. The new redhead wore USMC cammies, but was outfitted like one of the peacekeepers, and it wasn't hard for any of them to guess that he was one of the Americans attached to the UN forces rather than the regular command.

"Benning," Lifeline responded after a moment of silence. "Just flew in today."

"Welcome to the most cultured gravel pit on Earth." The red-haired trooper threw them a lazy salute. "Corporal Faraday, usually of the United States Marine Corps. _Der Teufel Hunden. _You guys Army?"

"It depends," Tommy interjected, a slightly queasy look on his face as he chased a greasy bit of vegetable around the bottom of his tray. "Is this going to turn into an inter-branch pissing contest?"

"Rangers, huh?" Faraday said instantly.

"Yep." Half of the six Joes at the table were Rangers, and Beach Head was big enough for two people, so that technically gave them a Ranger majority. "How'd you guess?"

"Your cheerful and cooperative attitude." Faraday flinched backwards as Beach Head, who had been studiously ignoring the conversation until then, rounded on him like a wounded bull. "Whoa! Hey, hey, hey, I didn't mean anything by that. But no, seriously, I saw the Ranger tab on Little John's arm there."

"Gawddamn jarheads," Beach rumbled.

"You say that like it's a bad thing . . . Ah, look, never mind me." He flashed another grin, once again mostly aimed at Scarlett. "Command's always telling me I won't get promoted any farther if I don't learn to stop running my mouth, but what can I say, I like stimulating conversation."

Scarlett quickly marked Faraday as a curious type. His gaze slid over all the members of Tango Team but stopped dead on Snake-Eyes, who—thanks to the limited ability of prosthetics to disguise a warped eyelid—was wearing sunglasses in early twilight. Jaye, ever the diplomat, also noted the direction of his look and smoothly interjected herself. "There sure doesn't seem to be a lot of conversation going on around here," she said, putting down her fork and aiming a grin of her own at Faraday, who lit up like a Christmas tree at the attention. "Everybody's so isolated from each other. You're the first member of a different task force that's even tried to talk to us."

"Boston Irish. The urge to talk trumps everything, even which command you're posted under. Besides, once this is all over, I'll be back in the USMC where I belong." Faraday yelped as he was elbowed by one of his seatmates, another peacekeeper. "Fuck off, Dean," he said congenially to the offender.

Jaye clearly sensed an opportunity to push the conversation further away from them, and jumped for it. "That was uncalled-for," she said to Dean, who was looking distinctly irritated. "Something wrong?"

"Oh, no you don't," Faraday interjected. "We're not getting into this shit again. C'mon-" A glance at the name on Jaye's shirt "-Cameron, don't even ask that."

Dean shook his head. "Listen to him," he said to Jaye. "Doesn't respect anybody, not the mission or, or even his command. Tell me you haven't been stationed in B group, or you'll never be able to shake him off."

"I respect the mission," Faraday shot back.

"So why don't you respect your commanders?"

"The commanders are fine. What I don't respect is having half-a-dozen guysall telling me to do different things."

"Look at the bigger picture, Faraday. For once." Dean gestured broadly, indicating the walls of mountains rising up all around t hem. "Look at where you are. Can't you stop complaining for once in your life and just think?"

"I'd still rather be back Stateside. Just one guy telling me what to do would be nice, too."

"Really?" Dean shook his head. "What does the States have that this place doesn't have more of?"

"Yeah, it's nice," Faraday responded, the slightest edge of irritation sneaking into his voice. "But my family's Stateside. Sue me if I like home. And only one guy yelling at me."

Dean tucked a square of processed meat into his mouth, shooting an exasperated sideways glance at Faraday. "The bigger picture, Faraday. Look at it."

" . . . you still haven't explained what you mean by that."

"If you haven't figured that out, then you're not going to get anything out of your time with this unit. You have to think beyond the limits that military service places on your thinking."

Faraday shook his head. "You went out for OCS, didn't you."

There was another warning rumble from Beach Head, but this time, it was aimed in a different direction. "'Limits it places on yer thinkin'?" He repeated, cocking his head and eyeing Dean. Storm Shadow prodded Snake-Eyes and held up five fingers.

"The limited worldview. Kill or be killed." Dean blinked owlishly. "Peacekeepers have a unique opportunity to work under multiple commanders, some of which may be more open-minded to acceptable compromise." Snake-Eyes shook his head and held up ten fingers in response.

"But if you ever want to get anythin' done, ya can't be questionin' yer commander," Beach Head said. There was a hint of an edge in his voice; he was a chain-of-command man, through and through. "Sure, there've been bad commanders, but even good ones never won if their troops didn't think as a unit. There ain't no room for debatin' strategy in a war zone." Faced with the ten fingers, Storm Shadow rolled his eyes and shook his head.

Dean raised an eyebrow. "Maybe if more troops debated, there would be fewer atrocities committed." That got a grin and a meaningful nudge aimed at Snake-Eyes, who just shook his head again.

"That's where yer wrong. Disciplined troops've got it through their heads that there's boundaries they don't cross." Storm Shadow let out a disappointed sigh, and Snake-Eyes focused more intently on the conversation.

"The Nazis were disciplined, too." That elicited an eyeroll from Storm.

"So because somethin' bad was done by disciplined people, that makes all discipline bad? I think ya got some wires crossed in yer head, boy." There was a slight but noticeable emphasis on the word _boy, _and Snake-Eyes counted off something on his fingers.

Dean rose to his feet, his expression sour. "Well, I guess _y'all _aren't in the mood for debate," he said coldly. Beach's eye twitched. Snake-Eyes leaned forward a little more, waiting for something.

"Yew got something to say to me, boy?"

"I've got better things to do with my time than reason with someone with a third-grade education," Dean said in a low voice. He tried to make an exit, but found himself abruptly yanked back, courtesy of Beach's snake-fast grip on his collar.

[Ten lines exactly,] Snake-Eyes signed to Storm Shadow. [Pay up, brother.]

Storm Shadow groaned and handed him a five-dollar bill. "I was certain he'd crack earlier. He's being unusually hard to needle today."

"Kavanaugh . . ." Scarlett said tiredly. "Put the peacekeeper down. We have a meeting with the colonel in ten minutes, and I don't want to explain why we had to stop and scrape someone off the table." Dean was dropped to the ground, his face bright red, and Scarlett turned to face him. "Here's a tip: people will be more inclined to debate rationally with you if you don't act condescending. Now, I'm keeping the peace for you right now, but don't let it happen again."

Dean took off, and Scarlett rubbed her forehead. The headache was getting worse. Tomorrow, she reminded herself; tonight they would meet with Col. Folkes, and tomorrow they would delve into the pyramid. Tomorrow, when it was just Tango Team again, things would be a lot simpler.


	3. Orders are Orders

**Author's Note:** In which plans are made, hints are dropped, and somebody makes assumptions he should not have made.

Code phrase translation:

_Ridentem dicere verum quid vetat—_What prevents me from speaking the truth with a smile?

_Vir sapit qui pauca loquitur—_The man is wise who talks little.

MOUT-stands for Military Operations on Urban Terrain. Defined by the US military as all operations conducted in areas where man-made structures may significantly impact the order of battle. Scarlett is using it here as a verb, referring to following urban-clearance procedures.

**Rating:** T for now. May climb to M in future due to violence.

**Disclaimer: **G.I. Joe is the property of Hasbro, Inc. The Aliens and Predator franchises are property of 20th Century Fox Entertainment. I derive no profit from the use of these characters and concepts, and have received no compensation. Please accept this work in the spirit with which it is offered—as a work of respect and love, not an attempt to claim ownership or earn money from these intellectual properties.

* * *

**Chapter Three: Orders are Orders**

By 1800 hours, the team had assembled in Col. Folkes' office. The colonel was a short, stocky man, his jaw and chin lined with a ruff of beard that reminded Scarlett of Civil War generals. He ran a quick, sharp glance over them as they saluted.

"At ease," he said briskly. "Sgt. Scarlett, I take it?"

Scarlett raised an eyebrow. "Sir?"

"Right. Of course." Folkes cleared his throat. "'Ridentem dicere verum quid vetat?'" His pronunciation was horrible.

"'Vir sapit qui pauca loquitur,'" Scarlett responded, completing the code exchange. "Is this building secure, colonel?"

"Yes. You can speak freely." The Joes visibly relaxed. "I repeat—Sgt. Scarlett?"

"Yes, sir. Tango Team reporting in."

"Abernathy's famous secret troops. It's going to be interesting having you on site, that's for sure. Provided you live up to your overinflated reputation." Folkes examined the line of Joes before turning back to Scarlett. "Lady Jaye is a bit obvious, and frankly, nobody who's ever been to Benning could fail to recognize Wayne Sneeden. Which ones are supposed to be ninjas?"

"The ones who aren't there any more, sir."

Folkes whirled in place. Sure enough, the lineup of Tango Team was now short two men. He glanced around, gaze darting towards every corner of the room, but the ninjas were not to be seen. The colonel's lip curled as he shook his head. "Your men have a very liberal interpretation of 'speaking freely,' Sgt. Scarlett."

"Sorry, sir. They haven't been housetrained." Scarlett looked up, spotting the two ninjas clinging to the ceiling. Storm Shadow grinned back at her before releasing his grip on the pipes, landing catlike right next to Folkes and making the colonel almost jump out of his skin.

"All right, I get it. Your reputation isn't inflated." The colonel waved Storm away, shaking his head. "This is why I hate having specialists on base."

The ease with which Folkes had been rattled worried Scarlett, though she didn't say anything; the ninjas' antics were as much a way of testing a new commander as they were showing off, and someone with all his ducks in a row would have called them out on their disrespect for a higher rank. Folkes, however, was just shrugging it off. Like the master sergeant behind the desk in Admin, Scarlett got the impression that the man was worn out. She covertly signaled for the ninjas to ease off, and was relieved when Snake detached himself from the ceiling and slipped quietly back into his place in line.

The colonel moved back to his desk and put a hand on a map lying there, motioning for the Joes to gather around. "Abernathy tells me you people don't stand much on rank, so let's get right to it. This is a map of the temple—a good map, not like those half-complete things everyone else has gotten." He put a finger on one area, a set of corridors outlined in red. Corridors which definitely hadn't been on Scarlett's map. "Mysterious intruders have already been spotted, mostly in this area. The men have been writing it off as those 'black snake' stories everybody likes around here, but stories don't leave behind solid evidence."

"What kind of evidence?"

"Scuffed prints, busted equipment . . . oh, and a lock melted through by acid." The colonel snorted. "None of the damn commands are willing to even talk to each other, and we don't know if the others have been having the same experiences. It's a good bet that those Cobra people are already on site."

He ran his finger along the map, outlining the upper levels of the temple. "The first two subterranean levels—here and here—are pretty much blocked off. We've had people going over those with a fine-toothed comb and a satchel of C4, closing any natural tunnels that might allow access from any of the other thousand and one caverns they've got around here The only way to get in is through the shafts-one access shaft for each level. Guards have been posted at the entrance to the third sub-level, the unexplored one, but nobody's gone down there yet." He snorted, tapping the line between the second and third sub-levels. "The UN Security Council specifically requested you people be the ones to explore that area. Bottom line, that's probably where the damn infiltrators are coming from."

"Tunnel work," Storm Shadow said thoughtfully, glancing at Snake-Eyes. "I do some of my best work in tunnels. Not much light, cramped spaces . . ."

[Psychological warfare,] Snake-Eyes signed back. [And nobody ever looks at the ceiling.]

"Good God, you really _do _have a mute trooper," Folkes said, glancing back and forth between Snake and Storm. Scarlett's eyes narrowed ever so slightly, but Folkes didn't seem to notice it, and Snake-Eyes didn't react to the comment. He just signed something else to Storm Shadow—something in Japanese, no less—and Storm let out a short laugh.

It reminded Scarlett of two boys passing notes under the teacher's nose. In some ways, they really were brothers.

"Are we going to be free to act as we see fit, sir?" she said, doing her best to direct the conversation away from an uncomfortable topic. "If you want to keep the Cobras' presence here under wraps, we may have to break some regulations to do it."

Folkes let out a humorless bark of a laugh. "When you go below, Sgt. Scarlett, you'll be on your own. That's why the UN wants your people here. The only broken regulations I'll know about are the ones you tell me about." He shot a glance at the closed window. The shades were closed, but when they were open, that window afforded a clear view of the ruined temple. "You know the need for secrecy, though. You're going to have to do everything possible to keep that ruin in stellar condition. One bullet hole in an eight-hundred-year-old frieze, and this will turn into a PR disaster with the United States' name on it."

"Not in the plan, sir."

"So what exactly _is _the plan?" Folkes crossed his arms. "I've been told to equip you and point you in the right direction, but that's all I'm being told. I don't like being kept in the dark, sergeant."

"'Rat?" Scarlett said. The colonel looked alarmed, glancing around, until the slim tunnel specialist stepped forward.

"According to the archaeologists on site," Tunnel Rat began, edging the colonel aside for better access to the map, "the features they've seen so far have been a mix of Inca and Aztec architecture. Everyone noted the steppe pyramid shape of the site?" A number of nods from some of the Joes. "That's Aztec. The interiors, though, seem to be more Inca. That means we're going to be seeing a lot of long rectangular rooms; they didn't really go in for twisty corridors or any of that Tomb of Tut stuff. Subterranean structure, which means air shafts at regular intervals. If we get trapped by a cave-in, those'll be our best bet for escape." He pointed to Alpine. "Guess who gets to explore those?"

Alpine grinned back. "Smooth-cut limestone and granite, right? I've climbed worse."

"Loving the optimism, buddy." Tunnel Rat tapped a section of the map. "Now, on a normal mission in a regular ol' run-of-the-mill abandoned lost ancient temple, you wouldn't have to look out for traps. However, one of my new best friends gave me _this." _He opened a pouch on his belt and removed a wad of paper, unfolding it and laying it out on the table. It was a crude graphite sketch, misted over with cooking spray to fix the drawing. The Joes found themselves looking at a series of strange angular glyphs, arranged in long columns around a central image of an elaborately-attired man stabbing a long spiny lizard.

Jaye pounced on the drawing, her lips moving silently as she ran an eye over the glyphs. "This is strange," she said after a moment. "There's a mixture of alphabets and symbols here. I think the first one is actually _Cambodian." _She pursed her lips and glanced up, looking straight at Scarlett. "It's a warning. I'm not as strong on my ancient languages as I should be, but this line? Below the picture? Something about 'worthy warriors' and . . . 'moving walls?'"

"Translation," Tunnel Rat said. "Traps. If the original builders were taking cues from the Egyptians, then we can probably expect some pretty basic lethal stuff. They liked falling blocks of stone and dead ends with pits. Most of the archaeologists on site estimate that the traps would've fallen apart from sheer age, but the Incas had a bad habit of building stuff that lasts. I remember one time on the Cuzco site, there was this earthquake . . . yeah, okay, don't look at me like that, Scarlett, I'll save the story for another time."

"Summed up," Scarlett said, notching down the warning glare and turning back to the team, "unknown territory. If Cobra's down there, their people won't have very good hiding spots, which means standard urban clearance. MOUT every room. Two-man file for when it gets narrow—and I want a ninja at the head and foot of the column at all times. If we have to split up for any reason, which I do _not _plan to do, we'll maintain constant radio contact and five-minute check-in. Storm Shadow, you'll be on point whenever possible—we'll need your ears. One man behind for surface contact. Chuckles?"

The blonde undercover agent perked up at the sound of his name, then deflated almost immediately when he realized what that meant. Scarlett nodded. "Sorry, Chuckles, you're our surface man. While the rest of us are below, I want you on radio and map duty. You'll be guiding us when there is a map, and drawing new maps based on the information we radio back to you. When we're aboveground after each patrol, get back to working the peacekeepers. If anybody's keeping anything from their commanders, we need to know it. Understood?" A nod from Chuckles. "Everyone else clear?" Nods all round.

Scarlett turned to Col. Folkes, who was looking rather confused. "Sir?"

"Yes, sergeant?"

"What are your orders for Sgt. Dietrich's team, sir?"

It took the colonel a moment to catch up. Scarlett couldn't blame him; the G.I. Joe team operated far, far outside normal protocol and regulations, and handing them a license to be themselves alongside regular officers was a surefire way to guarantee some confused officers. "Sgt. Dietrich," he said finally, "my orders—which will be on record with the Administration office—are that your team relieve the guards posted on the second sublevel at 0600 tomorrow." Against all odds, a smile quirked one corner of his mouth before vanishing a split-second later. "I trust you and your team to conduct yourselves in a manner appropriate to the situation at hand."

Ahh, "appropriate conduct": a regulation-dodger's best friend. Scarlett saluted. "Request permission to go and prepare, sir?"

"Permission granted." Col. Folkes settled behind his desk. "Damn specialists . . . carry on, sergeant."

"Sir, yes sir! Tango Team dismissed!"


	4. OldTime Religion

**Author's Note:** Please note that this chapter contains plenty of things which will doubtless raise some eyebrows—including one very notable issue concerning Storm Shadow's hearing. Please be assured that I know these are weird, and they are in fact plot points that will be explained in future. We're getting into the thick of it now, kids.

**Rating:** T for now. May climb to M in future due to violence.

**Disclaimer: **G.I. Joe is the property of Hasbro, Inc. The Aliens and Predator franchises are property of 20th Century Fox Entertainment. I derive no profit from the use of these characters and concepts, and have received no compensation. Please accept this work in the spirit with which it is offered—as a work of respect and love, not an attempt to claim ownership or earn money from these intellectual properties.

* * *

**Chapter Four: Old-Time Religion**

The world was gray and misty the next morning when the Joes fell in. Still in the guise of Sgt. Dietrich and her troops, but with packs jammed full of decidedly non-regulation equipment, they double-timed it across the sloping ground towards the lacework of barbed wire that served for a fence around the temple site itself. There were two yawning guards on duty at the gate, perfunctorily checking passes and orders; today was the day when the civilian archaeologists were supposed to be moved off-site, and aside from the soldiers changing shifts, nobody was expected to enter the building itself. Scarlett could see Beach Head tensing at the state of the guards, and hurried the team through the checkpoint before he could blow their cover by assigning more than the usual physically-impossible numbers of pushups.

The closer they drew to the ruined temple, the thicker the mist grew. The crumbled limestone littering the ground was chill to the touch, and beads of moisture clung to everything, making the footing treacherous. For a few long moments, after the gate had been swallowed up by the early-morning dimness and with nothing but the vague shadow of the temple looming before them, the Joes seemed to be utterly in the world. Coarse gravel crunched underfoot with each step. When Lifeline's foot hit a discarded soda can, the hollow _clonk _made the little medic jump and elicited a muffled obscenity from Beach Head.

Lights bloomed out of the dimness ahead, and two shapes resolved themselves into another pair of guards. "Fucking fog," one of them said in a strong British accent, rubbing his hands on his jacket in a futile attempt to get them dry. The other passed a comment in French, making Lady Jaye laugh. "Sgt. Dietrich, right?"

"Relief on the second sublevel," Scarlett said.

"Right, we've got you on the sheet." The soldier beckoned them forward, leading them right up to a half-crumbled ancient stone wall. A temporary guard shack had been erected by the dark doorway into the temple. "You'll need these," he said, unhooking several halogen lanterns from the wall and handing them to the Joes. "It gets darker than Satan's asshole down there. This shaft takes you straight down to the second level, so if any of your people are claustrophobic, they're out of luck. Your relief's coming through at 1400 hours."

Without another word, he and his fellow guard returned to their posts, and the Joes faced the entrance to the temple.

The broad ramp that they had seen from the air led up to the first and only level of the steppe pyramid, but the Joes were going below. The doorway in front of them was barely six feet tall, chiseled roughly out of the stone and braced with a mass of steel tubing and blue plastic tarps. Crude steps led sharply downward, with battery-powered lights strung haphazardly along one wall and providing just enough light to see the fall you would take if you put a foot out of place. From the look of the fresh tool marks on the stone, the archaeologists had broken a new entrance into an old shaft, probably to avoid unstable areas. The lights half-illuminated scenes and glyphs cut into the walls—bas-relief pictures interspersed with stained sheets of bare rock that once have must been intricately painted. Their breath echoed loudly in the tight space, and Beach Head cursed again as he cracked his head against a low-hanging spur of rock. "Gawddamn short people," he muttered, breaking the tension somewhat.

The further down they climbed, the newer the decorations on the walls looked. Small niches appeared, some empty, some containing bizarre statues of kneeling figures with oversized masks and weaponry. Here, the paint was in better condition and the pictures were much clearer. Every wall was a scene of war, with the blood depressingly well-rendered. Jaye murmured something about oxidized paint, and Scarlett agreed with her. The beautifully-painted blood pools all shone lurid green in the light of the lamps.

It was only a couple of minutes, but it seemed much longer when the Joes finally emerged from the cramped tunnel. The darkness dropped away abruptly as they stepped out into a large hall. Rather than rough-cut stairs, there were neatly squared blocks of stone underfoot, and more electric lanterns strung from block columns covered with intricate carvings. The roof was more than fifteen feet above, supported by curving arches fitted together from shapes as intricate as puzzle pieces. Statues lined the walls, but the hall was too broad for the light of the lanterns to reach them, and they remained dim half-shapes on the edge of sight.

Half a dozen soldiers were gathered in the light, quietly killing time in one manner or another. Two were playing cards, one was quietly sketching, and the others were talking about soccer. The sketcher looked up as the Joes stepped out of the tunnel and gave a whistle.

"Relief's here," he said, tucking away the sketchbook. While the others gathered up their gear, he stepped forward to introduce himself. "Corporal Calloway. You guys are here to take over for this level, right?" When Scarlett nodded, he sighed. "Good. Too damn spooky down here. Everything's been pretty much blocked off, except . . . well, nobody likes going past that open hole, frankly."

"Carry on, corporal," Scarlett said briskly. "Well take it from here."

The six men had decamped within seconds, and their voices rang out loud and relieved as they rattled their way up the stairs of the narrow shaft. Scarlett held up a hand, and the Joes remained still until a nod from Storm Shadow confirmed that he'd heard the soldiers reach the top of the stairs.

"Now comes the fun part," Tunnel Rat said cheerfully. The ninjas instantly dropped their packs and began shucking out of their BDUs, revealing skinsuits and belts of weaponry underneath. While the other Joes checked their weapons, Snake-Eyes retreated to a dark corner to peel off his prosthetics in relative privacy; when he returned less than a minute later, his customary mask back in place, he blended so easily into the deep shadows that Scarlett had to blink and focus just to make sure he was there.

Outback fished a radio pack out and thumbed it on. "Testing, testing," he said, pitching his voice low to avoid raising an echo in the long stone hall. "When is a portcullis not a portcullis?"

_"When it's a-loft," _Chuckles' voice came back. _"Thanks for providing the confirmation phrase, 'Corporal Cameron'; I didn't know it was possible to intellectual-ify a third-grader joke, but you've proven yourself once again. Please don't kill me when you get back to the world. How's the weather down there?"_

"You don't have to earn your nickname, wise guy," Outback grumbled. "Receiving you loud and clear. You find a safe place to transmit from?"

_"Yep. The colonel was nice enough to put me on punitive duty in a shed that just so happens to be isolated and practically soundproof. He catches on quick, that man."_

"Good," Scarlett interjected. "Chuckles, we're at the entrance of the second level-" She checked a handheld compass "-northwest corner. What's our bearing?"

_"Straight on and take a right. There'll be a big gap in the westernmost wall, and a set of stairs leading down . . . And that's where my map ends. You'll have to be guiding me from then on."_

"Roger that. Alpine, take over the radio; we may need your sense of direction to keep Chuckles oriented." At Scarlett's nod, the mountaineer took the radio from Outback and the compass from the redhead herself. "Everyone, form up. Storm Shadow? Head of the column, with me. Outback and Alpine. Jaye, you'll be in the middle there. Then Lifeline and Tunnel Rat, and Snake and Beach Head bringing up the rear. Everybody stays together. Safeties on until Storm says otherwise. Everybody has a flashlight? Emergency flares? Extra rounds?"

"Yes, Mom," Tunnel Rat murmured, just loud enough to be heard in the echoing tunnel as Scarlett strode past. Without breaking stride, she reached across and gently but firmly smacked the tunnel specialist upside the head.

"Good. Because unlike your mother, I don't clean up your messes." Scarlett pulled her crossbow out of her pack and double-checked its mechanisms before clipping it to its mount on her hip. "Let's move, everyone."

They moved.

* * *

_There were four of them, all Blooded, even the youngest. Their leader growled softly in his throat as he examined the glowing projection before them. A Hunting ground should not be invaded unless it was time for the ritual to begin, but the alert had been triggered days ago when Oomans first set foot in what was supposed to be a secure location. Now the four Blooded had finally reached the planet, only to find that there were more of them than ever! They had penetrated deeper into the Hunting grounds, further even than their scanners could read. They might have even reached the queen of the _Kainde Amedha!

_This was by no means acceptable. The temple of the Chiva was too valuable to risk Oomans damaging it when it was not time for the Hunt. The leader of the Blooded hissed behind his mask as he deactivated the projection. This would not be a Hunt; it would be damage control._

* * *

Twenty minutes' quick walk brought them to the dark gap in the wall that Chuckles had mentioned. Scarlett signaled a halt and put a hand on the broken rock, carefully angling her flashlight to illuminate the first of the steps downward. These had clearly not been freshly cut; they were ancient, lightly flecked with stone dust and intricately carved. Soft dips in the center of each step showed where the passage of ancient worshippers had worn down the rock.

Beyond it, there was darkness. The steps vanished downward into the gloom, with no light to be seen beyond the illumination provided by the Joes' flashlights and lanterns. A cool breeze ruffled Scarlett's hair: the hall beyond was huge, and somewhere beyond the staircase, there was an airshaft. At least they wouldn't suffocate.

"Hey . . . look at this," Alpine said softly. Something about the vast darkness beyond seemed to have induced the same reverent hush as a cathedral or a cave, and his voice was barely above a whisper. "Look at these rocks. More tool marks here—fresh."

Tunnel Rat shone his flashlight on the edge of the gap and nodded. "And check this out. The cuts are new, but the stone is old. Probably part of the original structure, or built within fifty or sixty years of it."

"Somebody built a wall across a well-used staircase?" Scarlett said, frowning. "Why would they do that?"

Storm Shadow smiled a little. He had pulled on his normal white mask, and in the stark light of the lanterns, the crease of his smile under the fabric threw eerie patterns of shadow onto his face. "I can think of a few reasons."

There was a moment of tense silence before a rumble from Beach Head broke it. "Ah'll bet you can," he said shortly. "Now ain't the time fer more of yer creepy stuff, spook. Scarlett, we movin'?"

"Let's." Scarlett put one hand on her holstered sidearm and, biting down a sudden inexplicable rush of nervousness, stepped over the crumbled threshold onto the first step.

As they descended downwards, a fresh rush of cool air greeted them. Their steps echoed hollowly, the size of the hall around them catching the noises and tossing them back at them lessened, like a ball worn soft from overuse. There was no illumination but the glow from the Joes' lanterns, and the strong beams of the flashlights became thin streaks of light in the blackness.

Tunnel Rat let out a low whistle as he played his flashlight over the ceiling far above them. "This place is huge," he murmured. "Look at that. It's been here so long that there's _stalactites _up there."

"Look at the columns," Jaye said softly. The bubble of light from their lanterns was just wide enough to reach the wall, some twenty feet away on either side, and Jaye aimed her own flashlight to the right to get a better look at the inset columns of stone. Leering figures stared back at them. "They're telling a story."

They were. The first of the columns showed a proud warrior, much taller than the grovelling human figures crouched beside it, holding an ornate spear to the sky in a gesture of challenge. The second column, ten feet further onwards, depicted the warrior descending into the earth through a door ringed with snakes. On the third, human slaves lay in a circle, disembodied skeletal hands clutching their faces. Jaye let out a quiet obscenity when she spotted the fourth column: spiny lizard-monsters were bursting out of the stomachs of the slaves. The humans' contorted expressions of pain were exceedingly well-rendered.

"Some sort of ritual?" Jaye mused aloud. "A sacred rite?"

"An' you looked at me funny when Ah said religious types creeped me out," Beach Head muttered to Snake-Eyes, who just shook his head.

The story unfolded. The warrior descended further into the pit, where the spiny lizards attacked him. He stabbed to death with several weapons—the spear, long daggers lashed to his arms—and even snared one in a net. Finally, as they reached the end of the hall, the last column showed the warrior emerging triumphantly from underneath the earth, the head of one of the monsters mounted on his spear.

"No surprise Cobra Commander wanted this place," Tunnel Rat commented. "This creepy stuff is exactly his style."

"I'll say." Jaye turned to her left and played the flashlight over the columns on the opposite wall. They told the same story—up until the last few, when the warrior was subdued and murdered by the lizards, who then attached another skeletal hand to his face. The final column showed the temple itself, consumed by flames. "It's a battle of the gods. Every culture has an Armageddon myth—the Vikings feared the day when a wolf would catch and eat the sun, and the Greeks were certain that even their gods would die. But the way this is depicted . . . definitely an Aztec influence."

Scarlett shifted to get a better look, and her foot clanked against something. She frowned and looked down, angling her lantern for a better look. A lone soda can looked back at her.

"I don't know about Armageddon, but we're on the right track for a fight," she said softly, bending down to pick up the can. The cheerful face of Julio the Grape, the plump-cheeked mascot of Argentina's best-known brand of _soda de la uva, _stared back at her. "Look at this."

Storm Shadow grimaced as he took the can from her. "This cannot be FDA-approved. They must be getting desperate. And buzzed. _Look_ at the sugar content on this label."

"Relax, Storm." Scarlett slowly unclipped her crossbow from its mount and raised it, checking the safety again. "It was probably all just good, wholesome chemicals. Do you hear anything?"

"Everybody be quiet." The Joes obligingly fell silent and Storm moved several paces away from them, closing his eyes and concentrating. For a moment, there was no sound but their own muffled breathing. When he rejoined them, there was a frown on his face. "I hear . . . something, I think."

That got a reaction from Snake-Eyes. [You think?] he signed, surprise clear even through the mask. [You mean you're not sure?]

Storm Shadow's expression was sour. "I heard _something. _It's muffled. Either it's very, very far away, or the walls of the temple are interfering somehow. Sound-dampening."

" . . . How far away would it have to be?" Scarlett said carefully.

"With this level of echo and background noise?" The ninja considered. "About three miles."

Scarlett flicked the safety off her crossbow. "Sound dampening it is, then. Maybe interference from the structure itself. Psyche-Out could probably explain it." She felt confident saying that. Psyche-Out could explain everything; the trick was getting him to stop. Safeties off, everyone. We're proceeding on high alert. Alpine? Update Chuckles."

"Got a rog on that." The climber moved aside and began to narrate in a quick, low voice to Chuckles, describing the area and what they had seen so far. Scarlett thought she could hear a scratching of pencil as Chuckles, high above in the storage shed, made a rough sketch of the area from Alpine's descriptions. Storm Shadow, clearly irritated, closed his eyes and tried to concentrate. Lifeline just shifted worriedly in place, jumping a little when Beach Head ratcheted the slide on his sidearm.

Finally, after several long moments, Storm Shadow returned again. "I've got a bearing on them. Fifteen or sixteen, coming from the southeast. Probably taking an alternate way around." The shadows deepened against the white mask as Storm grinned again. "They know we're here, and there's definitely Dreadnoks."

"How the heck do they even know we're here?" Lifeline asked tensely. His hand automatically went to his medical pack, as if anticipating that he would need it. "Does that mean someone told-?"

Scarlett cut him off quickly. "Doubtful. We knew going in that they'd be anticipating us showing up. Storm, are they looking for a fight?"

"I heard a chainsaw revving." Storm Shadow flicked a wrist, and several yards of climbing rope spiraled seemingly out of nowhere. "Shall we?" he called to Snake-Eyes, who cast a questioning glance at Scarlett.

[Mission leader,] he signed, pointing at Scarlett. Storm Shadow sighed.

"She's using the chain of command as your leash, brother. Very well . . . esteemed mission leader?"

Scarlett stopped for a heartbeat and took stock of the situation. If the Dreadnoks were coming from the southeast, that meant they were going to be coming up between the Joes and the way out. More maneuverability in the big hall, but also more darkness. But a smaller area could box them in . . . She flicked her light towards the end of the long hall, now only about thirty feet away. There! An antechamber, with only one smaller door leading out of it on the other side. And on the other side . . . was that a glimmer of weak light? She made her decision.

"Snake, Storm, and Outback," she whispered quickly. The three stealthiest of the whole party. "Go ghost. The Dreadnoks are coming up on our back, but they have to come through this room before they can catch us. I want you to make this room the most terrifying goddamn thing they ever walked through." A flicker of a smile from Snake-Eyes, and she resisted the urge to smile back. Silent ninja or not, he was a foot soldier at heart, and he liked it when she took command. "The rest of us will pull back to the antechamber and pick them off from a distance. It looks like there's an airshaft back there, and any shaft capable of getting enough air down here has to be big enough for a man; Alpine, if everything goes to hell and the exit's blocked for any reason, you're going to be our lifeline to the surface. Got it?"

Nods all around, and Scarlett's eyes narrowed. "Storm? How close are they?"

"Getting closer. I can hear them fine now, even through these-" Japanese obscenity "-walls."

"All right, let's move. Safeties off."

The Joes split into two groups and picked up the pace. Outback and the ninjas vanished into the shadows of the hall, Outback stepping back towards the wall, the ninjas unfurling climbing ropes and heading straight upwards. In seconds they were lost in the deep gloom. Scarlett took a deep breath and pushed the rest of Tango Team forward, double-timing it for the relative safety of the antechamber and the glimmer of light that hinted at an airshaft. They piled through the slope-sided doorway and clung to the walls, quickly and carefully checking their equipment one final time.

The chamber was much much smaller than the hall they had just left, about ten feet by eighteen. Here, the walls were painted instead of carved: more friezes of warriors and spiny black lizards. The corridor beyond was in bad shape, half-choked with rubble, but a broad air shaft cut diagonally out of the rock was still in near-perfect shape. A few weak rays of sunlight lent just enough light for Scarlett to see particles of rock dust falling slowly through the air, swirling in the soft breeze that continued to blow from . . . somewhere.

There was a shout from the other side, and the grinding roar of a chainsaw. Frenzied yells broke out, the hall echoing with the sound of running feet and triumphant bellowing from the Dreadnoks. Scarlett instinctively flinched as she heard the ripping chatter of a submachine gun. _Expanding their horizons, I see, _she thought as she snagged Alpine and hurried him back into the half-lit corridor.

"Stay here," she hurriedly ordered him. Alpine didn't need to be told twice: he jammed pitons into the cracks between the blocks and tested them before unholstering his own weapon.

Something damp dripped onto Scarlett's cheek and she flicked it away hurriedly, slamming a magazine into her sidearm and performing one last check on her rifle. The pounding feet were getting closer—and _there _they were, the first howls as exultation turned to fear and the charging groups began to scatter. Beach Head and Tunnel Rat, crouched by the door, fired off a handful of rounds with measured precision. Somebody shrieked, and there was the thud of a body being dropped from a great height. Scarlett knelt, taking cover behind the second door with her back to the air shaft. Jaye joined her, and Lifeline huddled behind them.

Another drip, something thick and gluey. Scarlett cursed and wiped it away, remembering what 'Rat had said about stalactites. She glanced up hurriedly, wondering if there was something up there that she might accidentally knock her head on in a firefight-

-and found herself staring into the biggest pair of teeth she had ever seen.


	5. Hack and Slash

**Author's Note:** _Now _we're cooking with gas!

It should be mentioned that some people may be skeptical about the way Scarlett reacts in this chapter. She's a battle-hardened soldier and extremely tough, but even master commandos can be surprised—especially when they're encountering something that they have literally never imagined fighting before. Scarlett will pull together and keep fighting, but that doesn't mean she won't get shaken up doing it.

Also, I hope nobody out there is too fond of the Dreadnoks . . .

A couple of shout-outs. Beach's description of the UN troops comes courtesy of the excellent willwrite4fics, who graciously allowed me to use it after I sacrificed a couple of Cobra troopers via facehugger. Also, Alpine's "ugly motherfucker" line is a reference to the Predator franchise, which apparently has a rule that our beloved stapler-faced crab aliens need to be referred to that way at least once per films. (This is a crossover, though, so I decided to mix it up a bit.)

**Rating:** T for now.

**Disclaimer: **G.I. Joe is the property of Hasbro, Inc. The Aliens and Predator franchises are property of 20th Century Fox Entertainment. I derive no profit from the use of these characters and concepts, and have received no compensation. Please accept this work in the spirit with which it is offered—as a work of respect and love, not an attempt to claim ownership or earn money from these intellectual properties.

* * *

**Chapter Five: Hack and Slash**

Shana "Scarlett" O'Hara was a soldier and a master martial artist. She had fought, she had killed, and she had almost died dozens of times.

She had never, however, anticipated this.

Oil-colored lips, covered with sheets of chitin and glossy with slime, peeled back from two-inch-long needle teeth. No eyes, no nose, nothing that could mark it as a breathing creature and not the product of some sick artist's drug-addled fantasy—just teeth, and the gleam of half-light on other sharp angles and smooth curves in the dimness. It clung to the ceiling, its spiderlike body bent at an impossible angle, and it let out a hiss that terrified Scarlett to her core.

But Scarlett wouldn't have been the woman she was if she let fear take control. There was a thing, a monstrosity (genetic tampering? Cobra Commander experiment gone wrong?) _right above her. _Without hesitation, she snapped her arm upwards and squeezed the trigger of her crossbow.

The creature let out an unearthly screech as the arrow sank home under the line of its jaw, and the roof suddenly seemed to come alive. An impossible number of glossy black limbs lunged out of nowhere, coiling under the monster and lashing at the stone as it leaped. Jaye, glancing up at the sound of Scarlett's crossbow firing, let out a shout of her own as the monster sent Scarlett crashing to the ground.

Scarlett couldn't breathe. Spiny limbs slashed at her torso, scoring deep lines in the kevlar hidden under her BDUs. The creature stabbed one claw at her left arm, and let out another hiss when Scarlett jerked the arm away. Couldn't breathe, couldn't breathe—instinct took over, and Scarlett gathered her legs under her and slammed them into the creature's chest. It keened horribly as it was thrown end-over-end, sailing past a surprised Alpine and crashing into a half-collapsed wall.

"What the-" Jaye began, but she already had her sidearm out and so did Scarlett. The creature howled and lashed its tail, but now its attention was on Alpine. The climber growled back and hefted his climbing axe, his own sidearm in hand.

"Come and get it, you ugly motherfucker!" he shouted. The creature seemed to take that as a challenge. Before either Scarlett or Jaye could so much as twitch, it pounced on the defiant Joe, bearing him to the ground in a tangle of thrashing limbs. Alpine's shout turned into a scream as the creature tore into him.

Bullets were no good: the monster was moving too quickly, and they couldn't risk hitting their teammate. Scarlett ground out a curse and raced towards the thrashing thing, drawing her ka-bar with one hand and a pair of shuriken with the other. Another scream from Alpine, oh God, it was going to kill him, what _was _that thing? _Barely a foot away now, it turns its head as Jaye yells to distract it, there's the neck-_

A stream of thin yellow liquid sprayed out of the knife wound and Scarlett couldn't help letting out a scream of her own as she leaped back. Her knife steamed, already dissolving in her hand, while droplets of acid flew as the monster thrashed in agony. A red-hot pain lanced across the side of Scarlett's face as if she had been slashed with a razor, and more steam gushed up from the floor as the liquid turned stone into so much pitted slag. She clamped her teeth down, tasting blood. For a moment her world went white as the pain overwhelmed her senses.

_Alpine. _She forced down another shout and dived forward, intent on the crumpled form underneath the creature. The small corridor was clouding with thin fog as the yellow liquid burned everything it touched, but Scarlett was hardly going to let something like that deter her. She flung the melted knife aside, seized the monster by two of the thick spines jutting out of its back, and pulled with all her might. Pulled too hard: it was lighter than she had anticipated, and its flailing lent some force to the motion, sending Scarlett catapulting backward and flinging the alien over her and into the antechamber.

There was a muffled shout from Beach Head, and a terrified yelp from Tunnel Rat, as the monster hit the floor hard and skidded. The two soldiers ducked aside, and the flailing, lashing thing went tumbling out the door and into the darkness of the hall beyond. Scarlett could hear screaming, but she didn't look to see where it had come from. Alpine was lying on the floor, his BDUs torn open, his own kevlar heavily scored and rapidly becoming soaked with blood. There was a horrible grayish cast to his face.

"Oh, no you don't," Scarlett bit out. She dropped to her knees beside him and wrenched away the kevlar. She was dimly aware of Lifeline, only a second behind her, coming up on Alpine's other side and applying pressure to one of the deep claw marks. His face was pale, too, but though he had barely seen whatever it was that had done this, he wasn't asking questions. He unrolled a pressure bandage and slapped it into place almost too quickly for Scarlett's eyes to follow.

"Scarlett!" The medic said. "He's bleeding out! Hold this-" And a kit was shoved into her hands. Alpine groaned and turned his head a little, eyes still clenched closed, breathing weakly in the now-dissipating steam from the melted rock. Lifeline's own breathing was harsh in the small corridor as he got to work, moving with almost mechanical precision and deftness. And all the while, the gunfire went on.

There were fewer voices now, and she could make out some words. One, she thought she recognized- "Oh, please, no no _no!", _a shriek for mercy that could only have come from a Dreadnok named Buzzer. Then the chatter of an Uzi, cut short by a heavy thud and one of those horrible nails-on-chalkboard screeches. Scarlett gritted her teeth and tossed the kit to Jaye, signaling for her to take over with Alpine and Lifeline. The oldest part of her, the part that had held loyalty to family long before understanding chain of command, wanted to stay by the injured climber's side—but she had more teammates out there, and the order of battle had changed. She was the leader. _Lead, Scarlett._

"Behind me!" she barked at Beach Head and Tunnel Rat, raising her rifle. The doorway would outline her silhouette if she stood there too long . . . She ducked through as fast as she could, flattening herself against the wall to the right of the door and bringing her halogen lantern to bear on the center of the hall.

A handful of scattered Dreadnoks were trying to draw together, but something reared out of the shadows and grabbed one, dragging him into the darkness with a scream. Buzzer was down, Thrasher was down. Somebody was rolling on the floor, screaming and clutching his face, but Scarlett had no idea who it was. She glanced up, searching for the tell-tale shine of steel in the darkness, and saw instead the liquid gleam of . . . _God damn it._

"One o'clock high!" she shouted, swinging her rifle to bear and squeezing the trigger. The thing clinging to the pillar, half-hidden in the shadows, keened as bullets stitched a line of holes across its gleaming carapace. As Tunnel Rat and Beach Head opened fire, the creature bucked, losing its grip on the pillar and tumbling fifteen feet to the floor. It made a loud cracking noise, reminding Scarlett of a hard-soled shoe stepping on a cockroach, as it slammed into the ground. There was the tell-tale hiss of melting stone.

"What the hell are-" Tunnel Rat began.

"_Stow it!" _Beach Head snapped. Tunnel Rat shut his mouth as the big sergeant major scanned the darkness. Scarlett aimed her halogen lantern at the place where the creature—the second creature—had fallen, but there was nothing there but a patch of freshly-pitted rock. She let out a hiss of her own and slammed a fresh magazine into her rifle.

"Watch my back," she ordered tersely, and stepped away from the wall. Beach and Tunnel Rat followed, the three of them forming a triangle, each with their weapon and lantern pointing outwards. The screams had stopped, and the gunfire had chattered to a halt as well. Now there was only the quiet hiss and bubble of acid on stone and the whimpers of the maimed Dreadnoks. The soft breeze murmured quietly between the shadowed pillars, stirring Scarlett's sweat-dampened hair, and for one long heartbeat of time there was no sign of life.

Then, eight feet off the floor, there was the pop of a flare. Bright red light illuminated the nearest pillar, casting stark shadows across the walls behind it and lighting up the dark figure that held it. Scarlett reacted instantly, bringing her weapon to bear before she realized that the hand holding the flare belonged to a human—a very familiar and, oh thank you God, _unharmed_ human in a black skinsuit and mask.

Snake-Eyes detached from the pillar and dropped to the floor, landing lightly despite the burning flare. Though he moved smoothly, his shoulders were hunched and his stance was wary, and Scarlett knew that behind the visor his eyes were constantly scanning the area. A moment later, Storm Shadow emerged from the darkness, supporting a half-stunned but thankfully unbleeding Outback. Snake-Eyes tossed the first flare onto the floor and popped a second one, flinging that one far enough to land on the other side of the decimated Dreadnoks.

Scarlett was the mission leader. If she lost her nerve, or even her temper, she would be letting down G.I. Joe and everybody in it. She put steel in her back, took a breath to steady herself, and turned to Storm Shadow. "Any more hostiles in the area?"

"I can't hear a thing," Storm Shadow said. He shifted, handing the wavering Outback off to Tunnel Rat. His voice was steady, but there was a grim look in his eye. "You saw it?"

"I don't think it was an _it," _Scarlett replied. She aimed her flashlight at the pitted place where the column-crawling monster had fallen, and then played it over the floor in front of the entrance to the antechamber. There was a clear track of melted stone, leading away from that same column. "I think it was a _them."_

"Casualties?" Beach Head grunted perfunctorily.

"It got Alpine. He was still alive five minutes ago." A muscle twitched in the sergeant major's cheek when she said that, but otherwise, there was no reaction. Scarlett knew Beach too well to recognize it as anything other than a facade of calm, but she envied his ability to maintain it.

Her gaze tracked over the floor and landed on the huddled forms of the Dreadnoks. She counted five that would never get up again; three were still alive, though the one that clutched his face was moaning like a wounded animal. Though she swept the hall with her lantern, there were no more Dreadnoks and no more black creatures to be seen.

"Hold this, please," Scarlett said calmly to Tunnel Rat. She gave him the lantern, slung her rifle, and moved across the open floor towards the whimpering mass of cuts that was Buzzer. His chainsaw was lying not far from him, but Scarlett wasn't worried that he might go for it: it was a smashed mess, its diamond teeth the only things recognizable in the wreckage. She stopped in front of Buzzer, who flinched automatically as her shadow fell over him and tried to cover his face with his hands.

"Hi, Buzzer," she said. Calm, but cold as a glacier. "Care to tell me what the Commander thought he was doing?"

Buzzer gaped at her. "I—I don't know nothin'," he burbled, wiping snot, blood, and tears off his cheeks with one shaking hand. His left eye was swollen shut, there were jagged cuts all over his face and torso, and a completely different type of yellow fluid had stained his bloodied trousers.

Scarlett had no love for any of the Dreadnoks. Her first instinct was to grab him by the collar and shout at him, demanding to know what Cobra Commander had been thinking when he bred those monsters—but Buzzer's one good eye was glazed in shock, and his whole body was trembling in fear and exhaustion. The Dreadnoks had never been actors: whatever Buzzer's plan was, he had been genuinely terrorized.

The second downed man was Thrasher. A massive goose-egg was swelling on his left temple, and when Scarlett knelt next to him and peeled back one eyelid, there was no response. "Comatose," she said briefly. Beach Head was already on his way to check the third, who was hunched over, its pink hair and bandana smeared with more blood and dirt.

When Beach Head put his hand on Zandar, though, the Dreadnok didn't flinch. Instead, he just moaned and drew himself into a ball, his white-knuckled hands clamped firmly over the right side of his face. There was a brief struggle, but even in top form Zandar was no match for Beach, and the sergeant major gently but firmly pried the hands away.

There was a moment of silence before Beach let out a low whistle. Scarlett glanced up at Zandar, and then at Beach Head, knowing that in that moment they were thinking the same thing: _we won't have trouble remembering him any more. _A large portion of his right cheek, as well as the edge of the eye, was a fused and melted mess. Zandar whimpered a little and fought to cover his face again.

"'Beach," Scarlett managed to say. Her own hands were trembling a little, but she forced them to stay steady. Mind on the mission, Scarlett, you've been through worse than this. "I want you to go help Jaye and Lifeline. Once we can be sure Outback and Alpine are stable, get on the air to Chuckles, as fast as possible." She put a hand to her belt, confirming that her crossbow was still there. Anything that helped her maintain her calm. "We can't get an extraction down here, so we'll have to come up to them. Some of those statues we passed were holding big metal spears—good enough for a makeshift litter, at least to get them back to the foot of that first shaft. Storm, help him with that. Be sure to confirm with Chuckles that Col. Folkes will have the area clear of civilians and prying eyes when we come up. Snake and I will guard the Dreadnoks and keep watch."

"What about the dead Dreadnoks?" Storm Shadow said.

"Our first priority is the wounded. We'll get all the living out, but we should search the bodies before we go. Orders, documents, phone numbers written on receipts, anything."

The Joes nodded and, thank God, didn't argue. They moved out quietly and quickly, leaving Scarlett and Snake-Eyes alone with the wounded Dreadnoks. Scarlett ripped a strip of velcro away from her pack, revealing a small and tightly-packed medical kit, and set to work on the whimpering Buzzer.

As she worked, she forced herself to focus. The sight of the . . . the things? . . . had rattled her, more badly than anything had in years. After all, she was accustomed to facing opponents with faces and voices, not creatures that secreted corrosive chemicals and moved like a nightmarish cross between spiders and snakes. Creatures that had, despite their best efforts, not died. But with the shock of their appearance fading a little, Scarlett let herself loosen a little bit and take stock of the situation.

Fact: those weren't human. Far from it.

Fact: Cobra had had people in wait. The Dreadnoks had known the Joes were coming below, and had in fact tried to cut them off from behind.

Fact: Cobra Commander, who was never at home to Mister Sanity, had in fact tampered with genetics before. And Dr. Mindbender, who was primarily responsible for the creation of Serpentor, had dropped off the radar months ago.

Conclusion: more genetic experimentation, far more afield than ever before. Maybe the Commander had been reading too much science fiction lately. Mentally realign the worldview, incorporate the new data, and don't panic. It was just one more plot of Cobra's, and it was only going to make her more determined to see its dictatorial lunatic of a leader brought to ground.

* * *

_Too late! The Oomans had encountered the _Kainde Amedha_. The second-in-command of the Blooded, an Honored warrior with many skulls on his belt, flared his mandibles and proclaimed that they should simply destroy the site. A bomb from orbit: no survivors, no difficulties._

_ The eldest of them all objected, though he deferred to the leader. The Oomans would notice. They were not quite as primitive as they had been when the _Kainde Amedha Chiva_ was last run, and they would see if the temple—and those living around it—disappeared off the map. _

_ Their leader only growled quietly to himself as he watched the dance of the heat signatures on their projected map. He had never seen Oomans move that way before._

_

* * *

_

The battered Joes emerged from the narrow shaft into a blaze of sunlight. Scarlett, at the head of the party and supporting a half-conscious Buzzer, winced and shaded her eyes as best she could. It was strange to realize that, for all the fear and violence they had just experienced, it hadn't been very long at all since they had fallen out that morning. The sun was just reaching high noon when the Joes carried their wounded out of the temple.

Col. Folkes had gotten the message. A large area around the entrance to the shaft had been quickly fenced off, and medical personnel from half a dozen countries hurried towards the team as they climbed up into the sunlight. Two French corpsmen and an Australian nurse relieved Scarlett of Buzzer, who had begun to come out of shock and was alternating between swearing and whimpering. A whole throng surrounded Beach Head; unable to get the makeshift litter up the stairs, the huge sergeant major had carefully carried Alpine up in his arms. The climber was unconscious and horribly pale, but as Beach Head lowered him onto a stretcher, Scarlett could see Alpine's chest rise and fall.

There was a flurry of activity from the back of the column, and Scarlett turned. Snake-Eyes had just stepped into the sunlight, and the first corpsman who reached him was shouting for an emergency stimulant and a defibrillator for Zandar. Snake-Eyes was trying to sign at him, but he had no hands free and the corpsman didn't seem to speak ASL.

"He's not dead," Scarlett called out, hurriedly leaving Buzzer and pushing her way through the throng of medics. "He's not dead. He was knocked out with a nerve pinch."

The nearest corpsman looked skeptical, but after a look at the still-masked Snake-Eyes, nodded once. Snake-Eyes, with a surprising amount of gentleness, handed the unconscious Zandar to the medics and began to sign. Helpless, they looked to Scarlett for translation.

"He says," she responded quietly, "that you're going to do everything you can to save him. He wants you to give him your word."

There was a moment of silence, even while the corpsmen bustled around Zandar. Then one of them gave a terse nod.

Without another word, Snake-Eyes strode away. The crowd parted in front of him, many of the soldiers gawking openly at the sight of the black-clad ninja, some whispering behind their hands as he passed. Scarlett wanted to follow him—talk to him more than anything. She knew what he must be thinking—but her first priority was her team. Col. Folkes would be wanting an explanation for, among other things, why her last radio transmission had absolutely forbidden anyone else to go down to the third sublevel.

It was only when one of the corpsmen seized her by the arm and forcibly began to swab her cheek that she remembered the acid had burned her.

* * *

Sundown. Chuckles, the only member of Tango Team that wasn't in the line for questioning by the colonel, made a dinnertime expedition out into the camp to retrieve their chow from the mess. While he was out there, he put his ear firmly to the ground, and reported back at the table when they all gathered to eat. Thanks to the ever-helpful (and thoroughly alarmed) colonel, they had been given an enclosed tent near the edge of the perimeter, with the flap facing the isolation fence raised to let in light and air. There, at least, they could plan—and eat—in privacy.

"Nobody's nailed us as the cause of all this this," Chuckles said, tapping a chunk of cornbread against the edge of the plastic tray. It made a wooden _thunk _sound. "The rumor is that there was a collapse in one of the subterranean levels, and that everybody is being isolated because of possible biological contamination. I contributed a couple of stories about pathogens found in ancient mummies; it'll probably be all over the camp by tomorrow. They're lousy cooks, but the mess staff here sure love gossip." He used the woodlike cornbread to mop up a bit of greasy gravy and chewed happily. He was one of the few; Storm Shadow was casting longing looks at a rabbit nibbling on a bit of greenery just outside the perimeter of the fence.

"Thank God for small mercies, then," Scarlett said with some difficulty. Though she had only been hit by a glancing droplet of acid, the medics had sworn that it would scar the side of her face if she didn't go for surgery soon: unable to get her to budge, they had compromised with injections, salves, removal of "potentially necrotizing tissue" and a bulky gauze pad taped over it all. She felt ridiculous, and it hampered her ability to speak, but only the ninjas had enough expertise and finesse to successfully dodge medics . . . Especially an extremely insistent Brazilian medic who was much more ready to threaten her with sedatives than Doc had ever been. "We'll let that one stand, then. The last thing they need to know is that a terrorist organization is unleashing its mutants right underneath their camp. No suspicion about the disappearance of Sgt. Dietrich's team?"

"None yet. That Faraday guy was looking for us—well, for you and Lady Jaye, mostly." Chuckles snickered a little, dodging an attempted shin-kick by Jaye. "I told him we were on guard duty inside the quarantine zone. Considering that this mess has pulled in a lot of soldiers and practically every doctor and medic available, he wasn't surprised. Though he was disappointed." Another shin-kick, this one actually connecting. Jaye looked innocent as Chuckles clutched his leg, and Storm cocked an approving eyebrow at her foot speed.

There was a crunch of gravel, and the Joes looked up to see Lifeline approaching. He was still in that morning's dirtied BDUs, although he had thrown a disposable paper gown and gloves on over it. His glasses were askew, and though he peeled the gloves off as he walked towards them, it was easy to see that they had blood on them. For a moment, the world held its breath.

Then Lifeline smiled, and they breathed again.

"Alpine's going to live," the medic said. Grins broke out among the Joes, and Tunnel Rat unabashedly pumped his fist in the air and cheered. "It was touch-and-go for a while there, and he won't be doing anything for at least three months. He lost a lot of blood. But he's just like the rest of you: damn stubborn."

"And Outback?" Scarlett said quickly.

"He'll be fine too. Good conk on the head there, but barring complications from the concussion, nothing to worry about. You won't be getting either of them back in combat, though."

"'Least we'll have 'em to kick around for the next coupla years," Beach Head said. Lifeline yelped as the sergeant major punched him in the shoulder. "Ya done good fer a skinny pacifist."

High praise indeed from Beach Head, and the medic understood it as such. "If anybody else has to get a concussion, sergeant major," he responded dryly, "make sure it's you. Your skull's so thick I wouldn't put money on you even getting knocked down."

"Any other day, I'd have ya runnin' drills 'til yer legs fell off," Beach Head said. "But still, don't go pushin' yer luck."

Lifeline went to discard the bloodied gloves and paper gown, and when he returned, Tunnel Rat and Jaye moved aside to make a place for him. The level of conversation rose as the last of the light faded. Storm Shadow and Lifeline began a spirited debate about whether or not a noogie was considered an act of aggression, Jaye pulled out a small book about Jarry and began to read quietly, and Beach Head began questioning Chuckles about the state of the UN troops. (He hadn't been impressed before. "Like a whole troop of damn Lifelines . . . 'cept they're _really _useless.")

Nobody was looking at their end of the table. Snake-Eyes shifted a little closer to Scarlett, and she felt soft pressure as one gloved hand settled on the gauze covering her cheek. He turned her face towards his, and the visor dipped a little when he took stock of the injury.

"I'm fine," she said quietly, so quietly that he almost couldn't hear her. But he did, and he ran a thumb over the gauze. "You know I'm not squeamish about scars."

She guessed what he was thinking, though. Zandar's face, ruined—and a near-miss with hers, too. Today seemed to be a day for dragging up all kinds of nightmares, and not just in terms of monsters.

"I'm fine," she repeated. He nodded, and she squeezed his hand briefly. She would have liked to do more . . . But there was the mission again. Commander first, person second. Scarlett sighed and turned away from the ninja, and he slid back down the bench, returning to his own meal as if nothing had happened.

"All right, Tango Team—listen up!" Scarlett said. The Joes stopped their conversations and turned to face her. "Sit-rep time.

"We're not sure what happened down there today," the redhead continued flatly. Back into mission mode. "But right now, the smart money says that Cobra Commander was field-testing some of his latest creations. The fact that it hit the Dreadnoks too opens a few possibilities. First, that Cobra and the Dreadnoks are at odds again—not unlikely. Second, that Cobra Commander has no way of _controlling _these things. No matter which one it is, it's bad news. We're going to be here for a while. Lifeline, what's the status of the Dreadnoks?"

"Zandar and Thrasher are unconscious," Lifeline responded, neatly breaking a chunk of apple in half. "Thrasher's coma was induced by severe head trauma. Zandar woke up about two hours ago and tried to attack anyone who came near him, so the medics have sedated him. Buzzer is awake."

"Can we interrogate him?"

"As a medic, I wouldn't advise it. He's in very bad shape."

"We're not going to be breaking his thumbs, Lifeline," Scarlett said. "But we need to question him about what he knows. Who knows how many of those things Cobra Commander has down there?"

"Fair point." Lifeline sighed. "He's not my patient. But the acid burns and claw wounds had the whole medical staff in an uproar. They'll be demanding an investigation, even if the colonel isn't. You could probably talk to him any time you wanted."

"Then that's our first move." There was a hard look in Scarlett's eyes. "We need to find out what the Commander's plan is, and what the hell those things were."

"Not to mention the sixty-four-dollar question," Tunnel Rat added. "'How do we kill them?'"

A moment of silence fell in the tent, and the Joes knew they were all thinking the same thing. Shot—stabbed—dropped wounded onto a hard floor, yet no bodies had been recovered. Just what _did_ it take to kill Cobra Commander's new monsters?


	6. Anatomy of a Murder

**Author's Note:** In which there is interrogation, confusion, UN peacekeepers, and a serious case of heartache.

The nurse's labeling of Buzzer as British, rather than Australian, is related to some heavy hinting in the comics; it's referenced that Buzzer may not be a genuine biker, but rather an Oxford intellectual who went to study biker gangs in Australia and wound up getting sucked into it. I love the idea of him trying too, too hard to be Australian.

**Rating:** T for now.

**Disclaimer: **G.I. Joe is the property of Hasbro, Inc. The Aliens and Predator franchises are property of 20th Century Fox Entertainment. I derive no profit from the use of these characters and concepts, and have received no compensation. Please accept this work in the spirit with which it is offered—as a work of respect and love, not an attempt to claim ownership or earn money from these intellectual properties.

* * *

**Chapter Six: Anatomy of a Murder**

Anybody who has spent long enough as part of a unit knows that in its own way, a camp is an organism. Signals are transmitted among different parts of the body, and smaller forms of life move around within it, performing various tasks to ensure the health and existence of the larger lifeform. Camp Carter, splintered as it was among so many different nations and chains of command, was normally more like a body with multiple-personality disorder—but within twelve hours of the battered Tango Team emerging from the pyramid, it became temporarily whole. Racial, national, and ideological differences were all healed by the power of the one thing no command can regulate nor weapon destroy: rumor.

As Chuckles had predicted, the story about diseased mummies had spread like wildfire. Every guard and medic within the quarantined zone was under strict orders not to say a thing about the injuries they had seen, and knowledge of exactly who and what the Joes were had been kept within a very small circle, but rumors were hard to kill.

Unfortunately, some rumors had begun outside the quarantine zone. Two guards abandoned their posts during the night and were found four hours later, huddled in a storage shed and swearing that the night had tried to come alive and devour them. Combined with the still-persistent stories about black snakes—stories now making a depressing amount of sense—there was an air of tension in the camp, and a couple of overzealous Americans had already rechristened the quarantine zone "Area 52." The Joes had to find out what they were up against, and quickly. Their best bet? A heavily-injured Dreadnok with a blond ponytail and a singular weakness to being stared at by ninja.

When the Joes entered the field hospital the next morning, Buzzer looked like hell. Propped up in a cot, six or seven tubes sticking out of him, one leg in plaster, his whole face swollen and part of that ponytail shaved away to allow for the stitching of a scalp wound—this was not the Dreadnok they were accustomed to catching. When Scarlett (followed by Snake-Eyes and Lady Jaye) poked her head into the mobile MASH unit's tent, Buzzer was flailing weakly, apparently on the losing end of a conversation with the same Australian nurse they had seen the night before.

"Look here, sheila, you don't need to knock me, I 'aven't got rotten in days an' my head's killin' me-"

"Bloody mad drongo! I'm all 'round here, flat out like a lizard drinking, and I'm not gonna have you lair it up while I'm tryin' to save yer bloody hide!"

"You ain't the full quid, you pig's arse!"

"Oh, don't come the raw prawn with me! I 'aven't got time for this!"

Buzzer was about to object when he spotted Scarlett, who waved cheerily from behind the nurse. His whole face turned pale under the heavy bruising, and what would doubtless have been another elaborate insult instead came out as a rather lame squawk. The nurse turned, spotted Scarlett, noted the sergeant's stripes on her arm and the rather grim set on her face, and nodded.

"You come to 'ave a go at this pommy bastard?"

"Pommy—now wait a bleedin' minute!" Buzzer yelped.

"Shurrup, you bloody Brit! You think 'cos you done your time in Brizzie you can talk the talk? I'm from New South fecking Wales!" She crossed her arms and turned back to Scarlett, who was almost tempted to turn to Lady Jaye and ask for a translation. Then the nurse smiled, and her accent thinned by about fifty percent. "He thinks 'cos he's lived in Brisbane he gets to savvy the lingo, but I've had him whining in circles for almost half an hour now. Pom if I ever heard one." Another protest from Buzzer, which the nurse ignored. "The colonel said you were coming by. You're the specialists, right?"

"Right," Scarlett said, feeling slightly off-kilter. "We need to speak with the prisoner alone."

"Make it quick. He gets another round of sedatives in 'bout half an hour, an' he goes for surgery this afternoon." She paused, frowning. "Didn't there used to be more of you?"

"The others are on the other side of the unit," Scarlett replied. "For security reasons."

Which was sort of true. Having injured Joes and Dreadnoks in the same vicinity, not to mention more Dreadnoks and possibly more monsters on the loose, meant that Outback and Alpine would always have a healthy Joe guarding them until they had been declared safe to be airlifted out. However, an egregious talker like Tunnel Rat would hardly pass up the opportunity to cheer up a sick pal at the same time, and the collective visit had quickly taken on the air of a social call. Not to mention that Storm Shadow—after declaring that a diet of camp food would do more to hinder the injured Joes' recovery than anything else—had asked Scarlett for a recipe for rabbit stew last night and then taken his bow and arrow out beyond the fence. Scarlett was willing to put good money that somebody had already started a poker game.

The nurse slipped past them, and a moment later, the heavily-battered Buzzer was left helpless and surrounded by Joes.

Everybody knew their assigned roles. Jaye, who settled into a chair at the side of the bed and looked neutral but not unkind, was Good Joe; Snake-Eyes, who was standing foursquare at the foot of the bed with his arms crossed and a very big knife strapped to each formidable bicep, was Bad Joe; and Scarlett, who turned another chair backwards and settled into it with her arms folded across the back, watching everything from her place by the door, was Unpredictable Joe. Her favorite kind of Joe to be.

"Okay, Buzzer," Lady Jaye said. Brisk and businesslike, but much less hostile than the figure of death currently standing at the foot of the Dreadnok's bed. "You know why we're here."

"It wasn't my fault!" Buzzer said instantly. He craned his head, peering to see if the nurse was still within earshot. She wasn't. "I swear. We were just doin' our jobs!"

There was the tiniest twitch from Jaye—not nearly big enough for Buzzer to detect, but which spoke volumes to Scarlett and Snake-Eyes. Scarlett knew what she was thinking, because she was thinking the same thing herself: _he's never been this scared. _

Normally, a captured Buzzer combined obstreperousness with blubbering and attempts at finagling a deal. Not this time, though: the hands resting on the mattress had begun to quiver, and from the way Snake-Eyes cocked his head, Scarlett knew that he could hear their captive's heart racing. The ninja's right hand, resting on his left bicep, formed a single sign: _horror._

Lady Jaye took a gamble. "You're safe, Buzzer," she said calmingly, leaning forward just a little. The Dreadnok flinched. "Listen to me. What did Cobra Commander plan?"

"I'm not squealing!" Buzzer snapped back, his voice quavering. Fear was temporarily overwhelmed by the looming spectre of What Will My Bosses Think. "If I go an' tell, he'll send the rest of those bloody great things after me mates down there! He didn't tell us nothing, not even that he was using different monsters for the ambush! After getting' tore up like that, I'm not riskin'-"

"Wait a minute!" Jaye interrupted. "There are more of you down there? More Dreadnoks?"

Scarlett leaned forward herself, feeling her heart speed up ever so slightly. "Those weren't the creatures you thought you'd see?"

"Oh, _balls," _said Buzzer.

"How many Dreadnoks were down there?" Jaye said. "How long were you encamped?" Buzzer shook his head, clamping his lips shut.

"What kind of creatures were you expecting to see?" Scarlett asked.

Buzzer snorted, but his face was still pallid under the bruising. "Bite mine, G.I. Jane," he said, raising two fingers. Snake-Eyes shifted ever so slightly, and his right hand edged just half an inch towards one of his knives. Buzzer twitched again.

"Care to rephrase that?" Scarlett said, cocking her head.

The Dreadnok licked his lips. "Look," he said carefully. "I ain't tellin' you drongos nothing. But C.C. is the type to get real worked-up like over a chance to trap a load of Joes underground, right? Especially when he hadda big monster he wanted to test? Ain't he?"

"He certainly is," Jaye replied smoothly. "In fact, I'd say that he would send as many Dreadnoks as possible to make sure everything went according to plan." She glanced across at Scarlett.

"But that's not how it went, is it, Buzzer?" Scarlett said, picking up the narrative. "We all know Cobra Commander wouldn't trust the Dreadnoks to polish his helmet-" Buzzer sniggered a little at that, and Snake-Eyes cracked his knuckles, instantly silencing it. "-without someone there to keep an eye on you. Five of your buddies won't be riding anything besides a hearse ever again. With you, Zandar, and Thrasher, that makes eight."

Jaye jumped right back in, forcing Buzzer's eyes back to her. "Just eight Dreadnoks up against our whole team?" she said. The somewhat-concussed Buzzer blinked, clearly beginning to feel disoriented as he tried to keep focus on three separate people at once—exactly what they wanted, since it would make it harder for him to lie. "Now, if we were to guess that there were a total of fifteen-" A barely-audible peep from Buzzer. "-No, perhaps twenty-" Another peep. "Or maybe twenty-five-" And another. "-Or even thirty . . ."

When Buzzer didn't say anything, they both looked at Snake-Eyes, who nodded almost imperceptibly. "Thirty," Jaye repeated. "Thirty men down there. That leaves twenty-two unaccounted for."

"Ain't sayin' nothing," Buzzer repeated stubbornly.

"Especially not about what Cobra Commander was planning—right, Buzzer?" Scarlett cut in again. "Because you're so brave that you know your loyalty to Cobra supercedes your loyalty to Zartan . . . even if Zartan were to find out that you'd had an opportunity to possibly help save your fellow Dreadnoks from an experiment gone wrong and didn't . . . Commendable, really."

"That's psychological torture!" Buzzer yelped indignantly. "I know my rights!"

"The rights of a terrorist and international criminal who has been wounded and captured on his non-native soil by a group of foreign soldiers affiliated with neither the country of capture nor his country of origin," Scarlett recited. "That's a pretty impressive tangle. It'll take weeks for the lawyers to sort that one out."

There was a long, sinuous _shhhhiiinnggg _as Snake-Eyes unsheathed a wakizashi. [By the way,] he signed to Scarlett and Jaye, his gestures short and tense, [I'm saying something very threatening right now.]

Scarlett forced herself to keep a straight face. "That might work," she said thoughtfully, crossing her arms. "After all, you don't legally exist, do you?"

"Don't you dare!" Jaye snapped, rising from her chair as one hand flew to her sidearm. "Scarlett, keep your damn ninja on a leash!"

[I like that. Not how we are, but what they think we are.] Snake-Eyes punctuated the gesture with a quick slicing gesture near his throat, a gesture normally used to ask Scarlett to reserve his spot in the mess line on casserole night. Buzzer recoiled as if he had been shot.

"Geneva Convention, you mad buggers! Geneva Convention!"

"Snake-Eyes, if you touch a prisoner-" Jaye began. Only her dancing eyes gave away her amusement, and Buzzer wasn't looking in that direction: his gaze was riveted on the wakizashi. "Put that thing away and stand. Down!"

"Buzzer is Zartan's flunky," Scarlett called across the bed, still seated on her backwards chair. "And Snake never liked Zartan."

"Scarlett, talk to him!" Jaye shouted, a very convincing edge of desperation in her voice. Buzzer was trying to squirm up towards the head of the bed, but between his IV tubes and the heavy cast, he wasn't going anywhere. Snake-Eyes cocked his head, moving almost mechanically as he turned the wakizashi, examining its shine in the light. "For God's sake, talk! He'll listen to you!"

Scarlett rose from her chair and stepped towards Snake-Eyes, holding out her hands. "Easy, big guy," she said cautiously. Snake-Eyes snapped his gaze towards her, and she let her steps falter a bit. Buzzer whimpered. "Let's all not lose our tempers . . ."

"Calm, Buzzer," Jaye whispered. "Don't make any sudden movements. Be brave."

Snake-Eyes let out a soft hiss and raised his free hand. [That reminds me,] he signed, the movements still harsh and jerky. [Cubs versus Braves in the season opener at Wrigley. I'm betting on the Cubs. What do you think?]

"You're insane," Scarlett said tensely. "You know that won't work. Hawk said so."

[Hawk? Hawk is a Yankees fan. His opinion doesn't count.]

"We have to look at this rationally. Some people . . . some people are just born to lose." Buzzer turned pale, and Scarlett clenched her teeth as if she were laying down the law. "That doesn't mean you can do this kind of thing."

Snake-Eyes raised the wakizashi, clearly not willing to listen to reason. [Hey, they've got Ryne Sandberg this year.]

"I'll talk! I'll talk!" Buzzer squealed, clutching his sheets. Sweat was beading on his bruised forehead, and his lower lip was quivering. "Cobra Commander had us set up base on the fifth underground level and there were loads of us and loads of Vipers and it was all planned 'cause Cobra Commander wanted to use those creepy stories about the black lizards and stuff as cover for his new monsters but he must've used new monsters 'cause those weren't the ones we thought we were gonna see and they ate Slay Belle and Juice and it wasn't in the plan, seriously, and I didn't know they were gonna try to eat your guys too and I swear to God I'm gonna go straight and work in a halfway house for endangered orphans and stuff if you'll please please please please _please keep that crazy sonofabitch away from me!"_

At which point he ran out of air and collapsed onto the mattress.

"Nurse!" Jaye shouted. "Nurse!"

The Australian nurse came hurrying back in. Quick as a wink, Snake-Eyes had the wakizashi sheathed and was standing calmly, his hands behind his back as if nothing had happened. The nurse gave him a look that said "Nice try, buster" and shoved Scarlett aside, checking Buzzer's pulse and temperature. The Dreadnok whimpered again.

"All right, that's enough," the nurse said brusquely. "He deffo needs 'is medicine. Get out, now, all of you."

The three Joes trooped out, Lady Jaye leading the pack. As they reached the door, though, Scarlett couldn't resist turning to Snake-Eyes and saying, just loud enough for the patient to hear: "I would've called your bluff, you know. You wouldn't do it."

[What, am I supposed to bet on the Braves? Have you _seen _their batting lineup this season?]

And Scarlett, reveling in the sheer absurdity of the situation, laughed out loud. Snake-Eyes smiled under his mask, and Jaye rolled her eyes a little at the whole thing, though she couldn't help grinning a little bit herself. Scarlett resolved to tell her that it was no more ridiculous than any of the flirting Flint and Jaye got up to.

* * *

_As the four Blooded emerged from their pods, the leader checked the projection of the temple again and growled at what he saw. Their scanners were indeed malfunctioning, and for no reason that they could find; it was as if some other force was interfering, broadcasting a wave that blocked the Bloodeds' equipment. It annoyed him, and he resolved to make the culprit's skull his personal trophy._

_ What he could see, though, disturbed him. The little green shapes of captured Oomans, glued to walls by the fluids of the _Kainde Amedha. _Doubtless, the spawn were already growing within them. This should not have happened . . . There should not be so many, so quickly. He hissed a command to one of the others, a younger Honored, to be certain that he carried the bomb. They had only one, and it was their best hope at eradicating what was quickly becoming a prison riot._

_ But what was this? One of the green shapes was moving. Interesting indeed._

_

* * *

_

"It looks like this," Scarlett said briskly. She unrolled the map, complete with Chuckles' additions from the last disastrous trip below, and pointed to the blocked corridor where Alpine had been attacked. "That was the only way any of us spotted that could have led to the lower levels, but the Dreadnoks were still able to come up behind us. We can question Buzzer again later, but he's scheduled for surgery soon, and he won't be any good to us until after that's over. We'll have to sweep that third sublevel for hidden passages."

They were gathered in Col. Folkes' office, the late afternoon sunlight creeping in despite the drawn shades. It had been almost thirty hours since the Joes had emerged, dazed and battered, from the depths of the temple; now, though, they were rested, re-equipped, and itching to get back into the fray. Scarlett had the map laid out on the colonel's desk, and the remaining members of Tango Team were gathered around, along with the rather exhausted-looking colonel.

"Do you mean to tell me, sergeant," Folkes said, "that you're planning on taking your team back down there? To what purpose?"

"The captured Dreadnok confirmed that there was a much larger force than we saw, camped on the fifth sublevel," Scarlett replied. "That leaves just north of twenty men unaccounted for. Not to mention at least two of Cobra Commander's new monsters, which were apparently so secret that he didn't even tell the Dreadnoks which ones he was using."

"Gawddamn effective monsters," Beach Head rumbled, crossed his arms. "Ah dunno 'bout y'all, but Ah ain't comfortable with the idea of them things runnin' around. Too many damn variables here, an' the whole thing stinks."

"The sergeant major has a good point," Scarlett said, nodding. The colonel looked startled at the news that a sergeant major was apparently reporting to a sergeant, but though Scarlett sympathized with his confusion, they didn't have time for explaining the G.I. Joe approach to chain-of-command and continued before he could say anything. "There's a lot of unexplained factors here. Why did they camp out in the temple itself? Why didn't Cobra Commander tell the Dreadnoks what creatures they'd be seeing?" She grimaced a little, feeling the gauze patch drag on her aching face. "Whatever's going on, though, we need to shut this whole thing down ASAP. Cobra's just had a very successful field test of its new creations—and I sure don't want to see those things being let out in a city somewhere. Our best evidence of whatever Cobra's up to is down there in that temple."

"And you're going to shut it down with eight men. One of whom is a pacifistic noncombatant." Col. Folkes scratched at his beard, expression skeptical. "Now look, sergeant. I've given you and your team a lot of leeway, because frankly, I've got the UN Security Council telling me I have to. But your last trip into that temple just brought back wounded men and a lot of crazy stories about monsters that nobody has really seen. I'm going to take it on faith that you're being honest with me—but this is still a joint operation."

Scarlett exchanged looks with her teammates. "What were you thinking, sir?" she said carefully.

"You're going to have backup. Some of the UN peacekeeping troops are cleared for high-security work, and we can hold them in strict confidence."

"With all due respect, I don't think that's a good idea, sir."

"Are you questioning my understanding of the situation, sergeant?"

"Sir, I don't think-" the redhead began.

"Sergeant." The colonel's voice was flat. "You're here at the behest of the United Nations. I may not be able to stop you doing whatever it is you do, and frankly, I'm not sure I ought to. But if you refuse independent backup—backup which, if you're telling the truth, could only validate your case and provide valuable assistance—then I'm going to be forced to conclude that something isn't right with your assessment of this mission. Does that make sense to you?"

The hard fact was that in some ways, it did. Under normal circumstances, Scarlett would have welcomed backup for an operation like this, where the territory was still relatively unknown and the risk factor was high. But bringing in new troops, ones that had never dealt with Cobra and didn't know how G.I. Joe did things? It would be putting those troops between a rock and a hard place. Even greenshirts had gone through the screening process, and had a relative idea of what to expect. She could almost _hear _Beach Head's blood pressure rising.

She was saved from having to answer, though, by the shouting.

_"Gardes! Gardes!"_

One of those words that was the same in every language. Col. Folkes whirled, trying to find the direction the sound was coming from, but the ninjas had already pinpointed it: with one leap, Storm Shadow was over the colonel's desk and out the window, Snake-Eyes less than a second behind him. Col. Folkes, startled, ran for the door to find out what the matter was, and the other Joes took no time at all in following the ninjas' abrupt exit.

The commotion was coming from the fence at the edge of the quarantine zone. Two soldiers, Canadian by their kit, were trying to restrain a huge man in a leather vest and tattered jeans. They weren't having an easy time of it: the man was covered in muddy slime, and he was roaring like a wounded bull as he thrashed, ignoring their demands that he stop and fall into line.

Snake-Eyes got there first. He pounced on the huge man's back; his hand darted to the back of the man's neck, and with one nerve pinch, the giant slumped to the ground unconscious. The two Canadians barely got out of the way in time.

"Whut in the Hell?" Beach Head said, voicing everyones' thoughts. The now-fallen man was clearly a Dreadnok—his vest had _Rat Man _sewn across the breast, below the gang's patch—but he was almost as battered as Buzzer. Most of the slime covering him had been turned thick and grayish by his scuffle in the dirt, but the consistency (and, ugh, the stink) of it was horribly familiar. He had been so covered with it that it seemed to have dried into place at one point, and patches of it were still crystallized in his hair.

"Where did he come from?" Lady Jaye said. "Over the fence?"

Storm Shadow shook his head at that. "The fence is immaculate—no signs of mud or slime. He must have come from inside the pyramid."

"Which begs the obvious question," Scarlett said, bending over the unconscious Rat Man and rolling him over with a bit of effort. "Why did he run _out _of the pyramid? Did the monsters get out of control again?"

The conversation was interrupted by Col. Folkes, who arrived at a run (more of a jog, really) with several medical personnel and soldiers trailing behind him. "Who is that?" he demanded, spotting Rat Man sprawled on the ground. "How did he get here?"

"We're trying to figure that out," Scarlett responded. Lifeline was already bent over the unconscious Dreadnok, checking his vitals, and the colonel aimed a slightly depressed stare at him: he was clearly not happy with this additional complication. The medic ignored him.

"Listen," Col. Folkes said, running a hand over his forehead. "If this man is another one of the terrorists, then we can question him. Why is he unconscious? Ninja nerve pinch? Of course. Wake him up, sergeant—uh, Snake-Eyes—and we'll see if we can-"

"Wait!" Lifeline snapped. The tone he used was so unlike him that everyone jumped a little. "Doctor!" he shouted, motioning to one of the men behind the colonel. "Get over here, now! This man is going into cardiac arrest!"

"What?" the colonel said, but the doctor was already past him and kneeling down next to Lifeline. The other medics quickly followed, their eyes wide as the still-unconscioust Rat Man jerked oddly on the ground. Lifeline pressed his palms together and dug them into the Dreadnok's chest, trying to get his heart going again, while the doctor breathed oxygen into Rat Man's open mouth. The patient jerked again, his extremities twitching.

"Snake, did you-" Scarlett began, but she knew the answer before she even finished asking the question. No, a nerve pinch couldn't have done this—especially not a nerve pinch administered by a ninja. Rat Man convulsed, his hands flexing against the dirt as if he were awake, his body wrenching strangely and almost throwing Lifeline off. His head snapped upwards, and the doctor was knocked back, his nose broken by the impact of the Dreadnok's forehead.

"Hold him!" Lifeline shouted. Storm Shadow and Beach Head, those closest, pounced on the flailing man and gripped hold of him, trying to still the convulsions long enough for Lifeline to get the heart started again. It didn't work: Rat Man's chest seemed to almost have a life of its own, thrashing left to right like a punching bag being battered by the ground itself, and Lifeline had to use all his aikido training just to keep from being thrown off. A blood stain bloomed in the center of the Dreadnok's grubby t-shirt, and Beach Head grabbed hold of the fabric and tore it away, trying to give Lifeline access to the wound.

And then Lifeline _did _go flying, landing hard on the dirt as _something _let out an unearthly screech. A sickly gray-green form erupted from the middle of the huddle of men, its whiplike shape almost cracking in midair. Beach Head gave a yell, Storm Shadow's arm blurred as he flung a shuriken, Lifeline said a word they never thought he knew-

-and the horrible screech was cut short as the creature thudded into the dirt, neatly sliced in half by the shuriken. There was a sizzle as thin yellow blood pooled underneath it, and a cloud of steam arose.

The Dreadnok was dead.


	7. The Hunt is On

**Author's Note:** In which conclusions are drawn, both erroneous and otherwise, and Faraday fails to use the sense his momma gave him.

We're really getting into the shit now. I think this is actually going to stay T, because despite my best efforts nothing is going to happen besides good old-fashioned horrible violence, but now we're pretty much done with all the aboveground stuff and get to open the can of whoop-ass.

**Rating:** T.

**Disclaimer: **G.I. Joe is the property of Hasbro, Inc. The Aliens and Predator franchises are property of 20th Century Fox Entertainment. I derive no profit from the use of these characters and concepts, and have received no compensation. Please accept this work in the spirit with which it is offered—as a work of respect and love, not an attempt to claim ownership or earn money from these intellectual properties.

* * *

**Chapter Seven: The Hunt is On**

It took about thirty-five minutes for the dead creature's bitter blood to oxidize into inertness. By the time Lifeline finally picked it up—carefully, with a pair of metal tongs that still hissed a little as the last of the viable acid touched them—the Joes were already prepared for the mission.

They raided the Camp Carter armory, under personal supervision of Col. Folkes. The officer's concerns had been in no way assuaged by the sight of the thrashing, dying Dreadnok, but his objections to the Joes' methods were no longer an issue. One order from him sent the armory personnel scurrying for the doors, and the Joes had their pick of the equipment without anybody bothering them about forms or clearance.

The message, after all, was clear. Nobody was sure just what the hell had happened to Rat Man, but however it had gotten there, the serpent in the man's chest was clearly linked to Cobra Commander's pets the temple. It had taken no time at all for Storm Shadow and Tunnel Rat to track Rat Man's footsteps to a side door—a small hole, really, hidden under a tangle of dead bushes in the northwest area that the archaeologists hadn't even begun exploring yet. ("This is why Indiana Jones could never exist," Storm had proclaimed as he marked the area on the map. "Archaeologists are too concerned with treasure hunting instead of manhunting.") And the fate of Rat Man meant that, in all likelihood, the Cobras and Dreadnoks still in the temple would be less an issue than the monsters themselves.

While the Joes armored up, Lifeline took exclusive control of the corpses. As sundown neared, the heavily-armed Tango Team piled into a small examination room in one of the medical huts, gathering around and watching grim-faced as their medic dissected the two halves of the strange slimy thing.

"It appears to be a juvenile," he said, carefully peeling back a layer of tissue with tweezers. "At a guess, I would say it's the young form of the things that attacked us earlier. Now remember, I'm not a pathologist." He definitely wasn't, but any pathologists within five hundred miles hadn't been cleared for something like this. "But looking at this, I'd say it matures extremely fast. Take a look at the cell sample under that microscope."

Beach Head, who was nearest the microscope, peered at it. "Ah'm seein' a lotta anaphase an' telophase," he reported. "Sure was growin' like gangbusters. Just how fast is fast?"

"Hours. A day or two at most."

As one, Tango Team looked at the small specimen on the table. It was no bigger than Scarlett's forearm, half-curled up, tiny crooked forearms the size of a wishbone clutched against its chest. In death, it was pathetic. In life, it had broken a man's breastbone before it was a minute old.

"What about the acid, Lifeline?" Scarlett said sharply. "That stuff ate through stone like it was nothing."

"As far as I can tell, the acid is what it has for blood." Lifeline grimaced and held up a hand, stemming the outbreak of shouts and bad words. "I told you, this is _not my area. _But it seems to be constructed a lot like a spider or a crab—instead of a normal circulatory system with blood, it has this stuff."

"Spiders have acid for blood?" Tunnel Rat said, whistling. "Damn."

"No, spiders have hemolymph."

"What kind of acid is that?"

"It's not an acid. It's a—look, never mind." Lifeline rubbed his forehead. "Its body must have a very strong basic component, stronger than the acids. That's the only reason I can think of for why such a corrosive liquid wouldn't burn the animal from the inside-out. Cobra Commander has really gone out on a limb with this one. This sort of thing should never have existed."

"Acids an' bases. So, what, we kill it by throwin' bakin' soda at it?" Beach Head said.

Lifeline shook his head. "I don't think that will do anything. It would have to get into the system itself, and anyway, baking soda isn't nearly strong enough. I think you'll just have to kill them the old-fashioned way."

The ninjas exchanged glances. Then Snake-Eyes put a hand on his ever-present Uzi, and Storm Shadow nodded, frowning ever so slightly.

It was no secret to any of the Joes that Storm Shadow preferred the traditional weapons. This wasn't because he couldn't use guns—on the contrary, he had been one of the highest-scoring trainees to ever pass through the Benning firearms program. But unlike Snake-Eyes, Storm Shadow had trained as a ninja for as long as he could remember, and though he was comfortable with almost every form of weaponry on the planet, he would always be most at home with the traditional armaments. In this case, though, when an enemy's blood would quickly melt any blade it touched, it seemed that Storm Shadow would be forced to follow his sword-brother's lead in choice of weapons. A fact that he was clearly not pleased about.

A ninja's damaged ego wasn't the most important thing in Scarlett's mind, though. Her eyes were still fixed on the corpse of the juvenile monster. "Lifeline," she said carefully, "if this thing is a baby . . . How did it get in the Dreadnok?"

Silence fell. She had said it, but everyone had been thinking it. They had all been close enough to see the look on Rat Man's face when it burst out of his chest.

"I haven't got a chance to look at the other body yet. Short answer? No idea." The medic shrugged. His tone was determinedly calm, but there were deep lines in his face and shadows under his eyes. "This is . . . at a guess, I'd say Cobra Commander based these things off insect DNA. So my money right now is on a spike-tipped ovipositor—an egg-layer, like some wasps will use to paralyze their prey so they can implant the egg."

Chuckles made an odd gulping noise, his face green-tinged. "That? Is not right."

"Body armor," Lady Jaye said. She and Scarlett exchanged glances, both nodding. "Lots of body armor."

"Even for the ninjas," Scarlett added. Both Snake-Eyes and Storm Shadow turned to look at her, their expressions as incredulous as possible through their masks. "You two have a habit of being up in the rafters, and that's where the Commander's new friends like to hang out. I'm not running the risk of having our best commandos turned into incubators for more of these things."

Ninjas weren't usually big on body armor: its very existence was based on the expectation that the wearer might actually get hit, which a ninja wasn't supposed to let happen. But Scarlett was even less enthused at the thought of Snake-Eyes—or even Storm Shadow—bent over on the ground, a bloodstain on his chest, hearing the hiss of that little-

She shook it off, and the ninjas raised no further argument. Not that it would have done any good: if Scarlett had to pull rank to save Tango Team from a gruesome death, then just call her Sergeant Hardass.

"Anything else?" she asked Lifeline, who shook his head.

"If you want me to conduct a thorough examination, you'll have to give me at least three hours. And judging by the way everyone's kitting up, I get the impression that we're going below sooner than that."

"Correct. However many of these things there are, it's too many." Scarlett turned and faced the group, putting her hands on the edge of the examination table and leaning forward. "We still don't know what Cobra Commander's up to. He seems to have used the Dreadnoks to bait a trap, if Buzzer's testimony counts for anything. He's going to be expecting us to come in with everything we've got, and unfortunately, that's exactly what we have to do. The only other option would be to bomb the temple off the map."

"What about gas?" Tunnel Rat put in.

"Not an option. We still don't have a working map of any of the sublevels below the second, and there's air shafts everywhere. We'd never get a high enough concentration to actually kill anything." Scarlett frowned. Her shoulders were tensed, her face ached, and the bruises and deep tissue damage from being thrown to the ground by the monster had only grown worse over the last few hours.

In an ideal world, she would've been able to throw this over and go home. Only a few days ago, she had been sitting on her bed in the pit, getting a neckrub from a wonderfully skilled ninja and teasing him about Incan and Aztec architecture. Now she was in a bad monster movie. But even if she was only human, she was also a Joe, and she promised herself that she wouldn't even entertain any more thoughts like that. Job to do. She took a breath, took one more glance at the dissected nightmare on the table, and focused on the mission.

"We're going in with everything, and I do mean everything. Col. Folkes is equipping and briefing his chosen soldiers as we speak, so we may still have people to look out for. But he says they'll pull their weight, and I think that since he saw what happened to Rat Man, we can trust his judgment." Scarlett's gaze was hard. "We're going to follow Rat Man's trail in there, and we aren't going to stop until we've swept the whole temple clean of anything that shouldn't be there."

There were nods from all around—all except Tunnel Rat, who was frowning slightly himself. After a moment, though, he nodded as well, and Scarlett raised her head.

"Pack up, Lifeline. Yo Joe!"

* * *

_The settlement was alive with Oomans, hundreds of them. The eldest of the Blooded chittered softly, remembering his first hunt—so long ago that the little creatures of this planet had barely discovered electricity, when he had slaughtered his way through dozens of them and claimed so many skulls that they had been worthless as trophies. He was aged now, honorably so, but he didn't doubt that he alone could have the camp fleeing in terror of the nameless invisible hunter. It was a good thought._

_ Unfortunately, there was no time for a proper Hunt now. The Bloodeds' leader led them, invisible, in their climb up the side of the temple. There, in one of the rooms that had been built under the directions of the great yautja ancestors, was the device that would give them the advantage in their unusual task._

_

* * *

_

Scarlett surveyed Col. Folkes' chosen troops with mixed feelings. British, Australian, and American soldiers, drawn from the ranks of those assigned to the Peacekeepers. Nine of them—seven infantrymen, a certified sapper, and a medic. Of the infantrymen, one was depressingly familiar. Faraday grinned as he watched Scarlett pace, Jaye behind her.

"Colonel Folkes has already briefed you," she began, crossing her arms and giving the grinning trooper the fish-eye. Faraday's smile slipped a couple of notches. "But before we go below, there are a few things you should know. This is a top-secret operation. All of you will be duly compensated by your respective governments, but that comes with a measure of risk and confidentiality. When we are below, you will follow my orders and the orders of my team. This may violate the chain of command-" That comment was aimed in the direction of another sergeant major, a broad-shouldered Japanese-American by the name of Yutani- "-but this isn't exactly a by-the-book kind of situation. Every deviation we make from regulations, we make in the name of keeping all of you alive and functional for as long as possible. My name is Scarlett, and you will report to me. If I'm put out of action for any reason, my second-in-command is Lady Jaye. After that, find any of the three men in masks. Understood?"

There was a mixed chorus of "Yes ma'am" from many of the troops, some of whom were confused about Scarlett's rank. A bellow of _"She ain't a ma'am!" _from Beach Head silenced that pretty quickly, though, and Scarlett smiled despite her nerves. She herself might be in charge of a monster-hunting mission in the depths of an ancient temple, but no power in the world could stop Beach Head from treating everyone else as if they were unruly greenshirts making lousy time on an obstacle course. It was oddly comforting.

She arranged the expanded squad with minimal difficulty. The two medics were placed carefully, with Lifeline more towards the front of the column and the other, Pvt. Stokes, closer to the rear. The new troops were interspersed between experienced Joes. Scarlett still loathed the thought of going into battle with a large number of unknown factors in play, especially in her own squad, but she couldn't deny that after seeing that creature burst out of Rat Man she was grateful for having the extra weapons in play. They double-timed it across the rocky slope towards the side entrance, Scarlett in the lead with Storm Shadow and Tunnel Rat, and Beach Head as ever bringing up the rear. (The big sergeant major seemed to have found a friend in Yutani, who was also the one with the sapper tabs. Scarlett would've paid good money to be a fly on the wall during those conversations.)

The slime trail was faint, reduced by the afternoon sun to dried-out scuffs in the dirt, but the ninja and the tunnel specialist followed it like dogs on the scent. It circled around to the northwest side of the temple, where most of the structure had crumbled into rubble, and stopped at an overgrown patch of dying greenery that half-covered a small, dark door. Tunnel Rat was their pathfinder now, and he went first, ducking gingerly down and testing the strength of the tunnel and the rough-cut steps there.

"We're good," he called out. He beckoned, and the newly-expanded Tango Team followed.

* * *

_ The Blooded were gathered in the darkness of one of the temple's uppermost rooms. Their leader hissed as he placed a hand on the ancient stone dials, turning them ever so slightly. Deep in the bowels of the structure, a clock began to tick. One reconfiguration, just enough to confuse and disperse the _Kainde Amedha, _and the cleanup could begin._

_ They passed a sound amongst themselves, a wordless chirrupping purr that every yautja knew. It was time to ready their weapons. Shuriken gleamed in the half-light, and the eldest of them all examined his combi-stick with satisfaction. In honor of the occasion, he had chosen his oldest and best, still decorated with the teeth of Oomans from his last hunt on this little planet. Maybe he could take a few more._

_

* * *

_

If the first descent had been claustrophobic, this one was like being buried alive. At its highest, the tunnel roof provided about five feet of clearance, leaving even the shortest of the soldiers uncomfortably stooped. In such a tight space, the breathing of the gathered troops was more of a racket than ever. Down, down, down they climbed, and soon muttered obscenities joined the heavy breathing of the men. The light from the tunnel entrance had long since faded, and in the glow of multiple flashlights and halogen lanterns, every man cast a dozen overlapping shadows that danced across the wall and flickered eerily against the carvings there.

And carvings there were, more of the serpents and disembodied hands and triumphant warriors. The builders of this temple had been obsessed with their apocalypse myth. Lady Jaye whispered a few words of translation to Scarlett as they passed the reliefs, though Scarlett almost wished she hadn't. Even Tunnel Rat, who was even more at home than the ninjas in a tight space, was looking unusually drawn and tense; his face grew grimmer with every image of the serpents that they passed.

The motif of the monster, repeated again and again, taunted Scarlett. Trying to distract herself, both from the claustrophobic presence of the men around her and the long darkness of the shaft below, she focused on the problem of the monster. How long would it take Cobra Commander to breed a creature like that? Months, if not years; he was building an entire being almost from scratch. She could imagine Mindbender having that kind of patience, but not Cobra Commander himself. And the temple itself hadn't been rediscovered that long ago . . . They must have jumped on the idea of the monster and formulated the trap almost immediately. It took a level of long-range planning and doublethink that Scarlett had trouble attributing even to Cobra.

"'Five foot high, and three may walk abreast,'" Jaye murmured behind her. It seemed to be a quote, but Scarlett couldn't place it.

After twenty minutes of steady downward descent, Tunnel Rat let out a low whistle. "We're there," he said softly. "Fifth sublevel, womens' apparel and . . . whatever the hell that is."

One by one, the Joes and peacekeepers emerged from the shaft, blinking. Tunnel Rat's whispered estimate confirmed his earlier comment: they were much deeper than they had ever been before. That cramped stairwell had probably been how the Dreadnoks and Vipers were getting to their camp. The technical details, however, were slightly overruled by what they now saw.

It had probably been a normal corridor, judging by its height and width. Now, though, it looked like no place they had ever encountered. The stone floor was completely obscured, coated with a thick slime that had begun to condense into gummy resin. That same resin coated the walls, forming dull black-and-gray ridges and strangely organic shapes that gleamed only when the strongest beams of light struck them. Thin strands of clear liquid were strung from wall to wall, and when Tunnel Rat put his hand through one of them, it stretched and snapped like soft rubber. Strange spiderlike shapes, half-coated in the same liquid, lady discarded in the corners.

Faraday's grin was completely gone now. "What the hell is . . ." he began, bending down to examine one of the shapes. He drew his kabar and dipped it into the mess of slime, aiming his flashlight at it as he pulled. A strange skeleton was pulled clear of the mess, tail trailing, its legs clenched in a rictus.

"_Put that down." _Beach Head again, his voice soft in the corridor but every word carrying steel. "Gawddammit, boy, didn't anybody ever tell ya that ya don't go pokin' strange shit at close range?" Faraday was pulled back into line, chagrined, and Beach kicked the gooey skeleton aside. "Which way, 'Rat?"

Tunnel Rat aimed his halogen lantern ahead, ducking his head to avoid another of the rubbery strands. "The corridor branches off in two different directions up there, but there's recent foot marks towards the left-"

At which point the clock ran out. Something rumbled deep within the temple, and Storm Shadow flinched violently, clapping his hands over his ears. And the walls began to move.


	8. Creature Feature

**Author's Note:** This is another chapter that's going to raise some questions—especially regarding, again, issues with Storm Shadow's hearing. Please be assured that these will be addressed soon.

Also . . . cliffhanger. I'm sorry, this story seems to lend itself to them.

Remember, reviews are very much appreciated! I realize that a story like this lends itself to a pretty limited reader base, but believe me, every bit of feedback is extremely welcome. And if I wind up doing something really stupid, I want to hear about it, okay?

**Rating:** T.

**Disclaimer: **G.I. Joe is the property of Hasbro, Inc. The Aliens and Predator franchises are property of 20th Century Fox Entertainment. I derive no profit from the use of these characters and concepts, and have received no compensation. Please accept this work in the spirit with which it is offered—as a work of respect and love, not an attempt to claim ownership or earn money from these intellectual properties.

* * *

**Chapter Eight: Creature Feature**

"_This place is fucking cursed!"_ Tunnel Rat yelped. His words were almost swallowed up in the roar of grinding rock. The walls shook. Bits of gravel broke loose and rained down, and there was a chorus of damp cracking sounds like a dozen cockroaches being stepped on as the slimy resin covering the walls began to flex and snap.

"Move!" Scarlett shouted. Tunnel Rat took off like a startled hare, and Scarlett flattened herself against the wall, grabbing the first of the troopers that had been in line behind her and giving him a shove forward. "Move move move! Down to the left!" The walls trembled again, and Scarlett bucked as the resin coating behind her cracked, forcing her forward for a moment. One, two, three men were past her, Lifeline with wide eyes and a grim set to his face. Somebody had dropped a halogen lantern, and somebody else accidentally kicked it, sending the beam of light bouncing all over the walls and making Scarlett's eyes water with the effort of seeing.

Storm Shadow hadn't moved. He was crouched in the same spot, face screwed up in agony, his hands clamped so firmly over his ears that his fingertips were tearing rents in the white fabric of his mask. Scarlett lurched across the narrow corridor, almost thrown off her feet as the floor gave another shudder, and grabbed him by the arm. "Tommy!" she screamed, barely heard over the cacophony. Was it her imagination, or was the ceiling closer than it used to be? She didn't want to find out. "Tommy, you have to get up!"

Most of the U.N. troopers were ahead of them now, and the world was shaking more than ever. Scarlett tried to grab the paralyzed ninja, but his muscles were clenched tight and moving him was like trying to move a statue. That, more than the moving walls, scared Scarlett to her core: she had been in cave-ins, but she had never seen Storm Shadow freeze like this. She seized his arms and hefted him. Oh God, the ceiling was _definitely _lower now. She struggled, trying to haul the catatonic man along, but she was wrestling with almost two hundred pounds of muscle and being jostled by the soldiers dashing past. The ceiling was almost at head height now.

Then Snake-Eyes appeared on Storm Shadow's other side. Without a sign, he seized his fellow ninja, taking most of the weight off Scarlett. Then, the two of them supporting Storm Shadow, they ran: the world's most awkward six-legged race ever, slipping and sliding in the thick slime, gravel raining down on their heads, moving with heads bent as the ceiling continued its inexorable descent. Scarlett let out an involuntary yelp and both of them picked up the pace. All of the others were past them now, three of the U.N. troops far down the left-hand corridor, where the ceiling wasn't lowering-

They ducked forward and tumbled into a heap, barely pulling themselves out of the way in time before the slab of rock thudded into place with an echoing boom. The other Joes automatically formed a circle, weapons drawn, as Scarlett gasped for air and crawled free of the dogpile of ninja she had found herself under. Storm Shadow was still frozen stiff.

"Scarlett, what-" Lifeline began.

He was cut off by a scream, and Scarlett's blood froze as she heard the sound of grinding stone. She instantly looked up at the ceiling, hoping against hope that she wouldn't see—but no, it wasn't moving. Her heart thudded faster as she looked around, wondering who had screamed.

It was the three troopers—the ones who had gotten ahead of the pack. They had collected at the end of the hallway, where Rat Man's tracks could still be seen leading into the darkness. Now, though, the tracks were invisible, because the floor was rising under them.

One of them screamed again, staggering a little as the slab of stone jerked. Scarlett could hear the groaning of ancient machinery, gears and pulleys straining for the first time in hundreds of years, almost drowning out the troopers' panicked yelling. The ceiling blocks screeched as they slid apart, showering the soldiers with gravel and stone dust.

And yet, it only took a second. By the time Scarlett's eyes focused on the soldiers, their upper halves had already vanished into the darkness.

"Beach! Grab them!" Scarlett shouted. The big sergeant major, who was closest to the rising platform, had already leaped for the opening and was trying to grab one of the mens' hands. But the gap was closing rapidly, and the terrified soldiers were too slow off the mark. Beach Head barely snatched his own arm back before the slab slid into place with a horribly final crash. It made Scarlett think of the door of a tomb closing.

There was a long, cold moment of silence. Every man stood still, ears open for more sounds of moving rock, but there was nothing. The dust began to settle, sticking to the slime that now coated them.

Then Scarlett drew a deep breath and unhooked the radio from her belt. "Private Velasquez, Private Hartman, Private Carlisle," she said. "Do you copy?"

_" . . . position . . . what the hell just . . ." _The signal was snowy and fading fast. _"Sergeant, we're . . . dark hallway and lots of stat . . . we do?"_

"Stay calm," Scarlett said as coolly as she could. "Listen to me. This puts you on the fourth sublevel. Private Velasquez, I want you to take command. Find an airshaft and fire an emergency flare upwards, then wait for retrieval. Do you copy?"

The buzz of static was her only response. "Private, _do you copy?" _she repeated tersely. The seconds ticked by, and there was nothing but silence on the radio. She narrowed her eyes and lowered it, glancing around at her troops. Minus the three U.N. men they were all there, some battered-looking—dusted with stone chips and greased with clear goo. They were all looking at her.

"Chuckles," she said. "Give me your radio."

The undercover agent handed it over, but when she tried it, the sound of more static was all she could hear. The soldiers had all fallen silent, their focus aimed at the radio in Scarlett's hand. For a moment, Scarlett prayed.

_" . . . roger . . ." _The voice was faint, barely cutting through the snow of static, but Scarlett could practically hear the hearts leap when it came through. _" . . . mand by Vel . . . lare and w . . ."_

"We copy, privates. Repeat: airshaft, flare, wait for retrieval." Scarlett forced herself to keep her voice steady. "We'll be checking in at the top of every hour. Nobody panic. Understood?"

_" . . . owledged, Sca . . . "_

"Good. Scarlett out." She lowered the radio, feeling the pounding of her heart slow as the momentary rush of panic faded. "Lifeline," she said, handing the radio back to Chuckles, "Give me the rundown. What's wrong with Storm?"

The medic was kneeling beside the frozen ninja, feeling his pulse and examining the whites of his eyes. Pvt. Stokes, the other medic, was hovering on the other side, looking a little lost. Lifeline frowned.

"It looks like he's . . . locked down, almost." He stood, stooping slightly in the low-ceilinged corridor. "He must have heard something—something we couldn't."

Snake-Eyes snapped his fingers for attention. His shoulders were bowed slightly, and his stance was tense. [Dog whistle,] he signed. [Subsonic frequency.]

That got a nod from Lifeline, although the medic still looked skeptical. "Psyche-Out and Doc were theorizing about that. Having a higher range of hearing could leave him vulnerable to frequency signals that humans can't normally detect. He must have heard whatever it was made this place move . . ." He put a hand against the stone wall, pressing against it as if expecting it to shift. It stayed there, solid and seemingly immovable. "Or possibly whatever is blocking our radios. It's short-circuited him. Like the high-frequency sounds they use to keep pets off furniture."

"We have to keep moving." Scarlett looked down at the hunched figure of Storm Shadow, pondering her options. The moving walls, the bizarre monsters—none of it seemed as unusual, or as unnerving, as the sight of Thomas Arashikage paralyzed like that. Beginning with the first time they had met, him swooping out of a cloud on a Cobra glider and promptly getting a black eye for his troubles, he had been so energetic that he was sometimes manic. Scarlett had tried to kill him a few times, and even now she wasn't fully willing to forgive the injuries received at his hands, but . . . Inactive Storm Shadow, whether on their side or not, was just wrong.

"Snake-Eyes," she said. The ninja slowly turned to face her. "I want you to give him a nerve pinch. If we knock him out, he won't be in pain any more, and we can carry him. But we have to get moving."

As Snake-Eyes knelt next to his brother, Scarlett cast a glance around, taking in the dirty faces of her troops and the wide-eyed fear in a few sets of eyes. "All right, everyone, listen up," she said, still keeping her voice level and calm. "We were supposed to go left, but that rising floor has it blocked off now. That leaves just one direction. We're going to proceed on a two-one-six; sweep every corner, monitor every direction. Sgt. Major Yutani, I want you in the middle, carrying Storm Shadow. Beach Head will watch your ten. Snake-Eyes, you're up front with me. Everyone else, as you were."

She took a deep breath and crossed her arms. "I know this is a strange situation. None of us signed up for tunnel-crawling—well, except maybe you, 'Rat, but whatever a consenting adult does privately is none of the Army's business." It was a lame joke, but it cut the tension a little, and a couple of the men began to relax. Tunnel Rat obliged with a theatrically sour face and a gesture that was considered rude in Africa, Australia and certain discerning parts of Scandinavia. "But our commanders chose us—us, and nobody else—for this mission. They believe that we can clean this place out. And frankly, I believe it too."

Scarlett unclipped her crossbow from her belt and cocked it, sliding a bolt into place behind the catch. The _snick _of metal clicking into place echoed throughout the shadowy corridor: it was a sound that meant business. "And I don't know about you guys," she said, rolling her shoulders slightly, "but I didn't appreciate getting spooked by traps and slimy skeletons. Let's get moving."

Short, simple, and effective. As the column formed up, she removed the bolt and put the crossbow back on her hip; the message had been conveyed, and the weapon wasn't as effective in these tunnels as a sidearm. But it had put some energy back into the soldiers, and that was what it had been meant to do.

Snake-Eyes joined her and Tunnel Rat at the head of the column. He was still tense, but with Storm Shadow limp and unconscious rather than frozen rigid by some unheard signal, he was just a little bit calmer. He nodded to Scarlett, and for just a moment, she let the back of her hand brush against his. The mask crinkled a little as the lips beneath it quirked into a small smile.

They moved.

* * *

_The leader of the Blooded observed the three-dimensional image with some satisfaction. One reconfiguration, and the _Kainde Amedha—_and the little Oomans who had pushed their way into the temple—had been all turned around. The swarms of drones now infesting the temple had been broken up, making the Hunt so much simpler. The leader let out an amused chitter and zoomed in on one area of the projection._

_ Three of the Oomans had been broken off from the pack. Even now, the drones were moving in. Doubtless they would be taken to be impregnated, like all the others—but long before the Pups could grow to full strength, the Blooded would have reached them._

_ First, though, the largest pack of Oomans had to go._

_

* * *

_

The corridor slowly began to widen. Painted frescoes gave way again to bas-reliefs, and ceremonial displays of strange curved blades began to appear in niches on each side. Tunnel Rat was moving more slowly now, stepping carefully around certain places in the floor and pointing out likely danger spots in a soft whisper. The strange slime was here again, but it was scattered much more sparsely; the few gleaming strands strung across the corridor cracked when Scarlett touched them, shattering into clear crystalline fragments that crunched easily underfoot like spun sugar.

Finally, after forty-five minutes' march, they came to a broad triangle-shaped chamber. Its ceiling was high, higher than anything they had yet seen on this level, and vaulted in an almost Gothic manner with interlocking arches and even two small gargoyle-like statues crouching above their heads. Here, the path diverged, two tunnels striking south and east. The eastward passage—the one which lead away from the direction they had first been heading in—was smooth and well-cut, only a bit of gravel littering it. The other was bizarrely shaped, wider than it was high and too low for any human to walk without bending double . . . But thirty or forty feet beyond the door there was the tell-tale gleam of sunlight, and even the distant whistle of breeze down the air shaft. Scarlett breathed, and for a moment, she thought she could hear the sounds of voices from far, far above.

"All _right!" _Faraday said, starting towards the smaller passage. "We can-" What they could he never said, because Scarlett snagged him by his pack and firmly dragged him back into line.

"No, we can't," she said softly. _"Look."_

They looked. The straight shape of the shaft turned the weak sunlight from above into a yellow-white shape in the gloom of the hall, focusing it like a flashlight beam on one small spot on the ground. But where it fell, the floor gleamed unnaturally, and black resin ridges shone with fresh slime.

"Something came this way," she added. "Recently."

"Thing?" Corporal Mackie contributed, his deep voice just slightly pitchy. He was a lifer, a solid granite statue of a man whom Folkes swore had a commendation list as long as his arm, but they were through the looking glass now and nobody was entirely calm. "You mean one o' them things what jumped outta the biker, mate?"

"Or its big brother." Scarlett held out a hand, blocking anybody from going forward into the tunnel. They should do what they had already ordered the three wayward privates to do—send up a flare to mark their position. They carried a whole selection of color-coded flares just for such a situation. But that shaft of sunlight, sitting innocently amidst the damply gleaming black masses, made her hair stand on end.

There was a shifting of weight beside her, and Snake-Eyes put out a hand. [Give flare gun,] he signed. [Mark our position.] In the dimness, his silhouette looked strange and alien to her—its normal sleek shape marred by the bulk of the body armor covering his skinsuit—and Scarlett flinched just a hair before bringing herself back to earth.

"All right," she said softly. Reluctantly. If it was a trap, the only person she could trust to evade it would be her lover, damn him. "Green flare." Green for "sustained some losses but proceeding." Sustaining no more, hopefully . . . Her hand felt heavy as she passed him the flare gun and ammunition. As he took it, his fingers brushed against hers again, and she felt her skin tingle as he quickly pressed two signs into the skin of her palm. _Be safe._

"You too," she murmured.

Snake-Eyes tucked the flare and flare gun into his belt, bent double, and began to crabwalk across the slimy surface towards the air shaft. One of the U.N. troopers whistled at how easily the ninja moved, but Tunnel Rat quieted him with an elbow to the ribs. No sense in alerting any possible enemies. Snake-Eyes reached the shaft, raised himself to his full height, readied the flare gun-

-and leaped. Scarlett bit her lip, tasting blood, as the ninja pushed off the ground and slammed into the side of the shaft, his toes digging into the tiny gaps between the stone. There was a bloodcurdling screech, and something oily-black crashed to the ground in a tangle of legs, crushing the spot where Snake-Eyes had stood only a millisecond before. Scarlett's hand was on her sidearm before she even realized she was afraid.

"_We've got bugs!" _she shouted as he raised the weapon. Subtlety was out the window now. There was a chorus of long, sinuous hisses, and the vaulted ceiling far above them began to undulate as something moved in the darkness. No, not something—some _things. _

The one that had landed at the base of the airshaft turned, aiming its sightless gaze at the Joes and troopers now gathered in the triangle chamber. Its lips peeled back, its mouth opened, and something dark and dripping emerged from the depths of its throat. It wasn't hateful or evil, like any of the other creations of Cobra that Scarlett had faced in the past. It was bestial, and it was hungry, and it wanted to kill them all.

So she shot it.

One two three four, forty-five caliber rounds that hit the creature squarely where its solar plexus might be. It reeled backwards, its strange bulbous head cracking against the side of the shaft, yellow acid dripping from its wounds and falling harmlessly on the black resin underneath its feet. Before she could pull the trigger again, though, the shaft re-echoed with the wonderfully familiar sound of an Uzi semiautomatic, and the monster crumpled to the ground with a shattered mess where its face used to be.

Now wasn't the time to celebrate, though. Four of the creatures were swarming their way down the walls towards Tango Team, their venomous hisses blending with the dry scrape and clack of their claws on stone. Once again, Scarlett thought of cockroaches, and her reeling mind conjured up a fact from some long-ago science class: _roaches can survive anything, even decapitation . . . _

"Light 'em up! Light 'em up!" she heard Beach Head roar, and a thunder of gunfire erupted from the group. One of the creatures shrieked and lost its grip on the stone, crashing headfirst into the ground with a sick crack as both its legs snapped. Someone let out a scream, and the hiss of acid told Scarlett that its crash-and-burn hadn't been without consequences, but that was Lifeline and Stokes' job. Order of battle. Order of battle. No time for a reload, one of the things was _right in front of her. _She dropped the spent pistol and drew another, drawing a bead on the monster's forehead.

Something sailed past her, fluid and silvery in the flickering light of the lanterns, and the monster jerked to a halt like a disobedient puppy on a choke chain. And a choke chain it was—the chain of a kasuri-kama, wrapped three times around its neck by the force of the throw, the scythe blade at the end embedded firmly in the underside of the creature's jaw. It reared back, shrieking angrily, but though the scythe was swiftly melting, the chain held. Its next screech was choked off as the plates around its neck began to crack and buckle.

Scarlett risked a glance. Storm Shadow—oh, thank God, Storm Shadow was the one holding the other end of the chain, still pale and on his knees but looking bitterer and angrier than Scarlett had ever seen him look. He let out a shout, half Japanese obscenity and half wordless snarl of rage, as he jerked the chain again.

But there were more of them now, so much more of them, and one was coming up behind Storm. Scarlett moved with the speed of desperation as she whipped up her arm, squeezing the trigger and barely feeling the shocks that ran through her as she put three bullets into the pelvis of the monster stalking Storm Shadow. She didn't know what that subsonic signal had done to the ninja, but though awake again he was badly off his game, and she wouldn't let him get killed while he was catching back up. His would-be killer reeled, letting out another tooth-jarring shriek as its legs failed to support its weight.

More screams. Two of the U.N. men were down, including the tough-as-nails career man Mackie. At least, she thought it was Mackie; there wasn't a lot left to identify, not after he had tried to blow one of the creatures' heads off and gotten a blast of acid blood for his troubles. Another man was on the floor, screaming in pain and bleeding out, as a creature dragged him towards the smaller tunnel by the shredded stump of his leg. Scarlett tried to shoot it, but it vanished into the darkness before she could even draw a bead. Tunnel Rat, Beach Head, and Yutani were fighting back-to-back-to-back, their automatic weapons cutting a swath through the writhing monsters, with Pvt. Hayesworth in the center picking off the creatures that might jump them from above.

Slowly, but surely, they were winning. The remaining soldiers joined Beach and the others, forming themselves into a tight circle with the medics at the center along with Hayesworth. The creatures were lethal, but they had no grasp of strategy, and as each trace of movement in the shadows was shredded by gunfire, their attackers were growing fewer. Faraday let out a triumphant shout as the last one, larger and more thickly-armored than the others, retreated hissing under the avalanche of lead.

"Keep moving!" he screamed at it. His eyes were wide, his teeth clenched, and he seemed almost manic as he squeezed the trigger again and again. "Keep moving! Move along here, nothing to see! I guess that's just how they do it in this neck of the woods, you scaly motherfucker! Move! Move!" Tunnel Rat grabbed for his arm, but Faraday ducked forward, breaking out of the circle as he continued to fire. The creature stumbled, its legs giving out, its black shell spotted with dozens of yellow-bleeding holes. And still, Faraday kept firing.

"Stand down!" Beach Head roared. Faraday didn't hear him. He squeezed the trigger again, planting himself in the doorway, still chanting his bizarre litany. His form was half in shadow now.

Then, abruptly, the gunfire stopped. Scarlett bolted forward, half aware that Snake-Eyes was again by her side, but Faraday had vanished. There was a screech and a damp cracking noise, like a watermelon being chopped in half, as the ninja and the redhead skidded to a halt in the doorway.

The monster had collapsed, its head neatly sliced in half. Faraday's gun lay discarded in the dust, its barrel still smoking. But Faraday himself, it seemed, had not gone far.

Four tall figures stood, silhouetted in the light of Faraday's dropped lantern. They were tall, impossibly tall, with thickly-muscled bodies and long dreadlocks that draped over armored shoulders. There was a gleam of metal everywhere—the rings in their hair, the metal of their masks, the blades on their wrists and at their hips. One stood to the fore, its burly arm extended, and clenched in its fist was the throat of a struggling Faraday.

A strange sound echoed through the corridor. A chittering hiss, more insectlike than even the monsters that Tango Team had just faced, sinuous and damp and organic like the noise of a jungle in the depths of the night. Faraday squawked and kicked, his legs pinwheeling in the air, but the creature holding him didn't even flinch. It just looked at Snake-Eyes and Scarlett, and it let out a sound that Scarlett was horribly sure was a laugh.


	9. Honor Killing

**Author's Note:** In which there are ninja, yautja, blood, dismay, death, war, horror, and the first of many Joe codenames assigned on the fly.

Regarding Predator behavior as shown in this chapter: the yautja are notoriously tough customers, but they do seem to have a certain ceremoniousness in certain aspects of their life. The expanded universe shows them placing a great emphasis on clans and the ritual of the hunt, and in _Alien vs. Predator, _Scar appears to treat the marking of Lex Woods as a very important thing. There are also, yes, hints at the importance of the concept of honor. In battle anything goes, but a challenge is something different, and behaving in the way . . . Well, just read on.

**Rating:** T.

**Disclaimer: **G.I. Joe is the property of Hasbro, Inc. The Aliens and Predator franchises are property of 20th Century Fox Entertainment. I derive no profit from the use of these characters and concepts, and have received no compensation. Please accept this work in the spirit with which it is offered—as a work of respect and love, not an attempt to claim ownership or earn money from these intellectual properties.

* * *

**Chapter Nine: Honor Killing**

Spend enough time in G.I. Joe, a unit made up of the most powerful and eccentric personalities this side of _everywhere, _and you get accustomed to the unusual. The person waking up next to you every morning could be a thing that the rest of the world considers a myth or a Halloween costume; the weapon you carry could be so top-secret that even the Area 51 conspiracy theorists haven't imagined the intricate depths of the government machinations necessary to put it into your hands; the enemy you plan against is a mad genius who created his own field commander out of the DNA of history's greatest generals. As a result, Scarlett O'Hara's tolerance for strangeness was very high. But riding a wave of terror and adrenaline, in the wake of a vicious scramble against black-shelled monsters with acid for blood, Scarlett can perhaps be forgiven for being struck completely dumb.

For one awful moment, only the strangled squalling of Faraday cut the silence of the tunnel. Scarlett and Snake-Eyes stood there, surprised into near-motionlessness by the appearance of the four huge . . . hunters? That was the only word Scarlett could put to them, with the skulls adorning their belts and the knives that any Southern girl knew were used for skinning a kill. It was obvious that, whatever else they were, they couldn't be entirely human: dappled and leathery skin, ranging from sickly yellow to camouflage green, was visible through the thick netting that bridged the gaps between the armor pieces. More of Cobra Commander's experiments?

"What the _fuck?" _Tunnel Rat put in from behind her, voicing her thoughts exactly. The words jolted Scarlett out of her horrified freeze, and she raised her weapon. Only seconds had passed since Faraday had bolted through the door.

Snake-Eyes, though, had been quicker off the mark. Both his hands were already raised—his favorite Uzi in his right, his left arm drawn across his body to brace it, a knife clenched in the free hand. He moved forward, slowly and smoothly, the Uzi trained on the lead hunter's forehead.

Who knew what the hunters spoke, but Snake-Eyes' body language was universal: put him down, or I will hurt you.

The creature . . . there was no other word for it . . . chortled, a wet clicking and hissing noise. Its shoulders shook as it laughed, making poor Faraday bounce and flail in midair as its arm wavered with the force of its amusement. The other three laughed as well, although they didn't seem to find it as funny as the one holding Faraday; the tallest of them all, a grizzled specimen whose armor was covered with scars and trophies, nudged the arm of one of his companions and let out a series of low chirrups.

Scarlett moved up to stand beside Snake-Eyes, her own weapon drawn and aimed. "Put him down," she said levelly. "This is a special operation. We don't want to hurt you."

The hunter cocked his head, the rings in his dreadlocks clicking against the heavy metal shoulderguards he wore. There was a hiss of static, and a copy of Scarlett's voice came echoing out of the shadows, now with a harsh and mechanical edge: _"Want to hurt you."_

More Joes and troopers had come up behind them now, but the tunnel wasn't wide enough for the whole company. Instead, Storm Shadow moved up to stand behind Snake-Eyes, and Lady Jaye joined him at Scarlett's shoulder. The intel agent's eyes were wide, and her lips moved silently as she looked over the creatures.

"Scarlett," she murmured, pitching her voice as low as she could, "Look at them. The hair, the spears, the trophies. Don't they look like-?"

"Not now, Jaye," Scarlett responded. Though she spoke to her teammate, her gaze and aim didn't waver from the lead hunter. She hadn't noticed it before—the bas-relief carvings and paintings filling the temple had been one of the things farthest for her mind—but now she was having difficulty thinking of anything else. She forcibly shook it off, refusing to let her concentration wander.

_"Not now," _the mechanical parody of Scarlett's voice repeated. The hunter laughed again. Faraday let out a strangled squeak: his face was beginning to turn red, despite his desperate grip on the hunter's fingers. _"Look at them."_

Snake-Eyes thumbed the safety on the Uzi on and off, making an audible click. The hunter hissed and, to Scarlett's immeasurable relief, lowered Faraday slightly. It raised its free hand to the sides of its gleaming metal mask and flicked two small tubes there, releasing a pressurized stream of cloudy gas. For a moment, Scarlett thought she smelled pure oxygen, and she hoped she wouldn't have to discharge her weapon: she had no intention of being burned alive.

The long nails—claws?-on the hand scraped loudly against the metal as the hunter took hold of his mask. Then, moving slowly and deliberately, he lowered it.

"An' they tell me _Ah'm _ugly," Beach Head said quietly.

Tiny, malevolent yellow eyes peered at the Joes from under a broad brow fringed with needlelike black spikes. Its forehead was as high and wide as a plate, the ringed dreadlocks only starting at the very crown of the head, and thick ridges covered in leathery skin circled from the temples and up around the skull. That was nothing, though, compared to the mouth—mouths? Lipless, sharp-toothed jaws sat nestled amidst folds of skin, surrounded by four spike-tipped mandibles and gleaming with saliva.

The creature roared, a terrifying keening noise, the mandibles flaring until its face was nowhere near anything the word should describe. Scarlett flinched ever so slightly, but Snake-Eyes didn't: the man's inhuman control somehow held. He squeezed the trigger, once.

The standard Uzi fires an average rate of six hundred rounds per minute, for a total of ten rounds per second. An accomplished and well-skilled shooter working with their favored hand can pull the trigger on a Model 19 Smith & Wesson ninety times per minute, or once per 0.66666666666 seconds. Even then, that shooter using an Uzi would still be forced to fire between six and seven rounds on the Uzi with each trigger pull.

Snake-Eyes fired two.

Two shots, fired so quickly that Scarlett didn't even realize what had happened until she saw the hunter lurch. The bullets had been aimed expertly, and the hunter lurched, snarling. A bright green streak appeared on his cheek.

_Memo to self: they bleed green._

The hunter hunched its shoulders slightly, the beady yellow eyes fixing on Snake-Eyes. The laughter had died away; now it was watching him with more consideration than before. Its arm had lowered to the point where Faraday's feet touched the floor, and Scarlett relaxed just an iota as she heard the trooper take a deep breath after long moments of strangulation.

Before the relief could really register, though, the creature picked him up again. Faraday shrieked as it took his head in one massive hand, the other gripping one of his legs, and mimed pulling him apart. The gaze remained fixed on Snake-Eyes, as if waiting for him to look at the skulls on its belt. The notably human skulls. But even if Snake-Eyes' stare had moved, the visor hid all expression, and the hunter would never know. The ninja just thumbed the safety again, sending a clear message.

The hunter's posture changed. It threw back its shoulders and puffed out its chest, the armor pieces sliding apart slightly with the motion to reveal scars covering its torso and arms. Its roar made Scarlett's hair flutter around her ears, but Snake-Eyes never moved.

Now . . . was it posturing? It seemed annoyed that Snake-Eyes hadn't reacted. It let go of Faraday's leg, leaving the gagging trooper dangling again, and thumped its chest with its free hand. The scars on display were absolutely gruesome—mottled and whorled and twisted, some clearly the work of blades and some that Scarlett was certain were the work of the same acid that had etched the stones around them. It was making a display of pride, pride and dominance, and it was telling Snake-Eyes that he could never be better than the hunter before him. The creature thumped its chest again and pointed with its free hand at the black-clad ninja, as if daring him to make a move.

Snake-Eyes' head turned ever so slightly. His expression was as invisible as ever behind the mask and visor, but Scarlett hadn't spent ten years with him for nothing; she could see the slightest tension of the shoulders, the bunching of the muscles as the urge to attack warred with the fact of the hostage. And she saw the tiny tremor that ran through his body when he realized what their next, best move would be. He had remained motionless when the creature tried to scare him, he had responded with a shot when it threatened to hurt Faraday. And now?

"Assert dominance," Jaye whispered behind her. Storm Shadow's expression was grim, his own gaze fixed on his tense brother.

Scarlett put a hand on Snake-Eyes' arm. She knew him. A man's life was at stake, but he was human and he had his weaknesses, and now the ninja needed the reassurance that this tactic had to be used. At her touch he nodded, just once, and stepped forward.

And he took off his mask.

The huge monster was clearly an incredible fighter. The claw marks, the acid burns, the torn knots of skin that told the story of what must have been a dozen fights to the death. But impressive or not, none of its wounds were the equal of Snake-Eyes' face.

The hunter's expression changed. Its mandibles flared again, its inner mouth opened in a snarl, and a second later it flung Faraday like a rag doll. The trooper crashed hard into Scarlett, sending them both toppling to the floor with Lady Jaye underneath them. Scarlett heard the sick crack of bone as the man slumped over her, his arm at a horribly awkward angle; _broken shoulder, _she thought instantly.

For the second time in an hour, she struggled out of a dogpile. Tunnel Rat and Beach Head were pulling Faraday back down the tunnel, into the triangle chamber where Lifeline was . . . Lifeline would help him . . .

A screech brought her attention back to the present, and for a moment, she thought her heart stopped. Snake-Eyes wasn't in front of Storm Shadow any more. A black blur, barely visible in the wavering light of the halogen lanterns, was attacking the hunter.

It swung its spear, slamming downwards towards Snake-Eyes' back, but the ninja dodged hard to the side and the blade glanced off rock. There was a glimmer of steel in the half-light, and the creature reeled back, a trench knife embedded where a human's heart would be. But the expected gush of blood didn't come, and the creature yanked the trench knife out, whipping it at Snake-Eyes with vicious speed. The ninja barely dodged.

Scarlett started forward, her weapon at the ready. She was confident in her lover's abilities, but the sight of those hunters—four of them would massacre him! And then Storm Shadow's hand was on her shoulder, and she was hauled firmly back.

"What the hell—let me go!" she hissed, jerking her shoulder in a vain attempt to dislodge the ninja. "They're going to kill him!"

"Listen to me, Red." She tried to throw him off again, and Storm Shadow responded with a vicious yank. _"Listen to me. _I know a matter of honor when I see one. Don't interfere!"

"Are you-" The phrase Scarlett used is not suitable for reproduction in print. She watched helplessly, still restrained, as Snake-Eyes barely deflected a vicious blow from one long set of claws. An Arashikage heirloom sword now lay on the ground, shattered cleanly into pieces by the strange metal of the hunter's weapons. "This is war, not a damn ninja ritual!"

"They're not all attacking," Storm Shadow whispered in her ear. "Look at it. Only the one who's been challenged is doing any fighting. The others are just . . . watching. Right now, this is just between my brother and the big ugly one." It was a mark of how serious he was that he didn't even joke about _which _big ugly one. "If either of us step in, though, we'd be violating the challenge, and then everything gets messy. Keep. Calm."

Scarlett wanted nothing more than to punch Storm Shadow right then. She understood what he said, but it was _his _hand keeping her from putting every bullet and blade she had into the hunter, and she was desperate to kick him somewhere personal and get into the fight. But, goddamn his smug face, he had a point.

The other three hunters weren't doing anything. They just stood there, arms crossed and hands resting on weapons, as Snake-Eyes bounced off the wall of the tunnel like a rubber ball and carved a long shallow slice out of their fellow creature's arm. The tallest even cocked his head a little, as if intrigued by the whole affair. Scarlett gritted her teeth.

"Don't show fear," Storm Shadow murmured in her ear. "Don't even twitch. If you're afraid, it shows that you don't have confidence in him. Just watch."

So she watched.

Snake-Eyes was strong and fast, but the hunter was stronger and almost as quick as he was. The ninja had one major advantage—his size—and he was using it at every opportunity he got. The hunter had to hunch and duck to hit him, while Snake-Eyes clung to the floor and harried the monster's vulnerable stomach and legs. It roared a challenge and kicked, huge clawed feet catching Snake-Eyes on the shoulder and knocking him off-balance, and it let out a snarl of triumph—but even as Snake-Eyes landed on the ground, he grabbed the leg and used it to yank himself to his own feet again. He leaped straight up, catching hold of a protruding ornament high on the wall, and sprayed the creature's stomach with gunfire before pushing off the wall and slingshotting across the corridor.

By angling his leap, he landed behind the hunter. Scarlett's heart was in her throat as she saw that he was now surrounded by hunters—three behind, one in front—but the three still didn't move, and Storm Shadow quietly reminded her to show no fear. She set her face in an impassive stare and just watched.

Behind her, the other men had no such compunctions: they were exclaiming and cursing and fighting for a look, the whole pack of them barely kept back by Beach Head and Lady Jaye. She wondered if their behavior would tell against Snake-Eyes . . . But, thank God, nobody was showing any fear. Beach Head was the closest, and his face was a grim mask of cold anger.

The hunter was learning. The next time Snake-Eyes leaped, one hand shot out, and there was a horrible _crack _as the ninja was brutally slammed into the ground. The hunter crouched over him, one hand pinning him down, the almost grinning in its way as another blade shot out of the sheath. Scarlett could almost see it adding the skull to its trophy belt.

Then Snake's own hands blurred, slamming into the hunter's arm _there _and _there, _and the hunter toppled forward with an unearthly howl as its broken limb crumpled underneath it. Snake-Eyes rolled hard to the side as the body came down, wrenching on the broken limb as he moved and dragging it with him. A fresh howl broke from the creature as its injured arm was twisted up into a half nelson. In seconds the ninja was crouched on its back.

It lashed out with its free arm. It was shoved up against one side of the corridor, and the blades struck sparks where they dragged against the rock, but its aim was good and Snake's body spasmed as one long barb ripped a gash in his thigh. Scarlett bit her lip in an effort not to shout. The taste of salt and copper filled her mouth.

But the monster was on its face, and to make that wound, it had had to fling its arm awkwardly across its back. Steel flashed in the dimness, and the monster's roar was muffled by the dirt and stone as a wakizashi nailed its own arm to its back.

Red and green blood mingled in the dust, but though Snake-Eyes was soaked with both, there was much more green than red. The hunter was down, impaled multiple times on heirloom steel. The human skulls on its belt had been crushed by the force of its fall, and bone shards crunched underneath it as it thrashed. Snake-Eyes slammed both palms down on the hilt of the wakizashi, eliciting a weakened and pained screech from the hunter.

Then he looked up at the others. Without his mask, his face was a horror, and Scarlett belatedly realized that it was twisted in a mix of pain and vicious aggression. For a moment, there seemed to be five inhumans in that small corridor.

One hunter stood a little to the fore of the others, and it met his blue-eyed stare with equanimity. Then it made a soft rumbling noise and shook its head, making the rings in its dreadlocks rattle. It put a hand on its own spear and raised it.

Snake-Eyes, the master of silent communication, understood that. He slowly rose from his spot on his enemy's back, only the slightest trembling of one leg showing the pain that the oozing gash was inflicting on him. Standing tall, his own blood dripping down his leg and leaving dark red footprints in the dust, he stepped back and turned to face Scarlett and Storm Shadow.

The defeated hunter rose from the ground like an avenging demon. With one wrench, it freed its pinned arm and flung it forward. The wakizashi slid free from the flesh and hurtled like a club, hilt-first, at the back of Snake-Eyes' head.

With barely a fraction of a second to spare, Snake-Eyes ducked. Even as the wakizashi sailed over his head, Storm Shadow raised a hand and caught it. The blade quivered like a reed as his fingers snapped closed around the hilt, and Storm Shadow favored the injured hunter with a deadpan stare even as Snake-Eyes raised his head again. The two men stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Scarlett, three sets of impassive gazes fixed on the would-be backstabber.

The first reaction came from the forestanding hunter. It had all happened so quickly that he had barely lowered the spear he raised to Snake-Eyes, and now, he let out a venomous hiss and pointed the spear at Backstab. The other two closed ranks behind him, their own weapons unsheathing, and soon a wall of armored muscle was facing the defeated hunter. Backstab whirled in place, his broken arm hanging limp and useless. He was surrounded, and suddenly, he was also friendless.

In one leap, he was over the humans' heads. The corridor was barely high enough for him to clear the jump, and he landed hard, crashing down in the midst of the group and sending Joes and troopers reeling. His arms were useless, but he lashed out with both clawed feet. Scarlett heard a shout as Lifeline jumped to shield his patient: _not Lifeline, he can't defend himself-_

The other three hunters came barreling through, shoving the Joes aside as they pursued Backstab. By the time they had pushed their way past, though, Backstab was gone. Lifeline was sprawled, unconscious but alive, next to the sedated Faraday, and a trail of green blood led down the other corridor. Backstab was headed straight towards the place the other monsters had come from; the hunters wouldn't follow.

They stood back, their weapons still in hand, and found themselves facing a unified front. Joes and troopers were standing together, weapons loaded and ready, eyes narrowed and tempers short. There was a moment of silence.

And Scarlett? Scarlett was through being scared. She was sick of being confused, of trying to work with only half the story of whatever was going on here, of monsters with faces like crabs and creatures that dripped acid when you shot them. And it was with no fear at all that she cocked her crossbow, aimed it at the heart of the leader alien, and said:

"You know what's going on here." It wasn't a question. "And you're going to tell us. Because you're down one man, this whole temple is swarming with more bug-monsters from Hell, and I have absolutely no patience left. _Talk."_


	10. The Art of Negotiation

**Author's Note:** In which more code names are given, we learn a little bit about the Predator approach to diplomacy, and everybody involved definitely earns time off. Sorry, this one's a little short.

There's a couple of Easter eggs in this chapter—not really hugely important stuff, but little things that I inserted because I thought they would help expand the world. There's one name mentioned towards the end that I definitely recommend Googling.

This chapter also contains some bits of the Predator language. These were taken from avp . darkgods . webs dot com. A yautja word in the text should be searched for there, though since the preds are going to be appearing much more, here's the currently-important ones:

kainde amedha—hard meat, the xenomorphs

chiva—hunt, trial

setg'-in pyode amedha—dog-Yautja phrase. Roughly, "crazy human." Snake-Eyes.

**Rating:** T.

**Disclaimer: **G.I. Joe is the property of Hasbro, Inc. The Aliens and Predator franchises are property of 20th Century Fox Entertainment. I derive no profit from the use of these characters and concepts, and have received no compensation. Please accept this work in the spirit with which it is offered—as a work of respect and love, not an attempt to claim ownership or earn money from these intellectual properties.

* * *

**Chapter Ten: The Art of Negotiation**

They gathered in the triangle chamber: four peacekeepers, eight Joes, and three hunters, all staring at each other. The humans were doing their best to keep their expressions impassive, but the metal masks made it impossible to tell what the nonhumans were thinking, and everybody was on edge.

Lifeline had only been knocked over by Backstab, and while he was nursing a headache and constantly checking himself for concussion symptoms, he couldn't be kept down. While Pvt. Stokes taped up Faraday, doing his best to immobilize the broken shoulder, Lifeline zeroed in on Snake-Eyes. The ninja insisted on remaining standing and ready, no matter what, so Lifeline crouched awkwardly while he bandaged the injured leg and stitched together some of the torn skin. He tried to get Snake-Eyes to take some painkillers-"It's a miracle your femoral artery and quadriceps weren't annihilated. You shouldn't even be on your feet right now. _Take the morphine_."-but it didn't do any good. Snake-Eyes remained stoic, and with his mask back in place, there weren't even any facial expressions to give him away. The fresh bandage stood out in the gloom, a patch of color that hovered eerily in midair when Snake-Eyes himself faded back into the shadows.

Seen close, in slightly better light, the hunters were no less bizarre but more distinct. Two were over seven feet tall, but one tipped the scales at easily eight and a half; despite his unusual size, though, he was clearly not the leader. That honor definitely went to the slightly taller of the other two, a barrel-chested specimen with a birdlike crested mask and a trophy belt crowded with skulls and other objects. One of them was, of all things, the black-box flight recorder from a commercial jet: nobody was going to ask how he got that. The others deferred to him, though the shortest had a sulky attitude and a dearth of trophies that said "junior partner" much more clearly than words could have. The youth also had an elaborate mask, this one with curved tusks running from the jawline up to the cheeks, but it was gleaming-smooth and clearly new.

The last was the one that interested Scarlett the most. Though taller, he was also thinner than the others, and the pitted, leathery quality of his gray-and-yellow skin suggested an older, harder-living type than either Black Box or Fang Face. Unlike the other two, whose stances were tense, wary, and aggressive, he stood with a straight spine and shoulders set back. It might have made him look less frightening, but Scarlett knew better than to be fooled: when an aged killer stood like that, it meant he had no need to prove anything. An old-guard fighter, and one with an eye for rules too—he had been the first to look sideways at Backstab's behavior. Scarlett found herself mentally labeling him Buckingham.

It was clear that the hunters were weighing their options. When they took up their places in the triangle chamber, though, both Fang Face and Buckingham took in the wrecked corpses of the insect monsters with interest. One of the creatures hissed a little, twitching even as its lifeblood leaked away, and Buckingham dispatched it with a single quick, surgical stab. Storm Shadow raised an eyebrow when the knife was pulled out of the monster's body unmarked by acid, and Scarlett found herself hoping that he wouldn't try to pickpocket the crab-faced murder aliens.

Then she realized she had thought the word "aliens," and mentally clamped down on that idea before it could get too much farther.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of tense silence, Black Box gave a low huff behind his mask and shook his head, making the rings in his dreadlocks click and rattle. He raised one arm and jabbed at a thick cuff he wore, pressing several buttons set into the metal there. Beams of light shot out of the device, the sudden glow making the Joes blink, and an image began to coalesce in the center of them. Tiny figures formed from sparks began to move.

It was a simple story, told in dumb show by small holograms. It was also, under any other circumstance, complete lunacy.

The creatures came from the sky, seeking to use Earth as a place to breed powerful animals and test their young in ritual hunts. They had the humans, who worshipped them like gods, build them temples all over the world; every hundred years, there would be another hunt at one of the temples, run by only the strongest of the young unblooded. But now, twenty years too early, modern humans had found the forgotten temples—and apparently, the black aliens hadn't taken too kindly to being disturbed from their sleep.

Black Box stabbed at the buttons on his arm guard again, and the images vanished, replaced by a crackly recording.

_"Don't let Destro or Zartan tell the Dreadnoks, Mindbender; those fools will never understand the grandness of my ambitions! Let them think the plan has not changed. Oh, and send Major Bludd to check on those Vipers; the eggs must be incubating by now." _A worryingly familiar laugh, half maniacal chortle and half giggle. _"I _love _science experiments."_

Storm Shadow cursed, surprising Fang Face and making him dart one massive hand towards his weapon. Snake-Eyes, Lady Jaye, and Sgt. Major Yutani, the only other three present who spoke Japanese, exchanged puzzled glances as Storm Shadow proceeded to call Cobra Commander several long, elaborately multi-syllabic phrases that Scarlett suspected she would have to discipline him for if he said in English. He made such an open show of his anger, in fact, that it was quickly clear to Scarlett that he wasn't actually pissed at all: he was posturing for the sake of the hunters, just like Backstab had postured in an attempt to intimidate Snake-Eyes.

The strange thing was that this didn't seem strange at all. Jaye had always said that all political negotiations had a degree of theatre to them, though the chosen genre wasn't usually violent melodrama, and in a way this was just one more aggressive negotiating tactic. Some opposing groups required that you make a show of good faith; some demanded a certain liberty within the framework of the agreement; some wanted you to throw a tantrum and string a few skulls from your belt. Scarlett didn't like it, but she could live with it. At least she got the impression that the hunters didn't make a habit of subtle political infighting.

Noting Storm's apparently vicious temperament, the three tall creatures nodded approvingly. Black Box triggered the projector in his arm guard again, and the little figures reappeared. A scenario played out: overwhelmed by the black monsters, the hunters detonated a bomb which wiped the area clean of life. The device looked just like the arm guards all three of them wore.

"You're going to bomb the temple?" Scarlett said instantly. There was a chittering noise from the leader, impossible to decipher, and she glared. "You can't bomb the temple. There are people up above—soldiers, archaeologists, medics-"

She was cut off by a sinuous hiss from the leader. _"Can't bomb," _the eerie mechanical version of her voice repeated back to her. She got the distinct impression that Black Box wasn't agreeing with her. _Can't, _most likely, as in _couldn't. _Another hiss of static, and new voices joined in—all of them sampled from audio recordings of the Joes themselves, cut together awkwardly and eerily. "Ah _can't bomb _the _ugly motherfucker." _

Scarlett recognized those last two words—Alpine, the moment before he had been pounced on by the first black monster. She clenched her fists ever so slightly, willing herself to remain calm even as she realized that the hunters had been monitoring them for much longer than she had thought before. And Storm hadn't heard them?

"No _bomb,_" the cut-together voices continued. "Gone."

Snake-Eyes snapped his fingers for her attention, and she turned to see him signing. The hunters hissed, clearly objecting to a language that they didn't understand, but that didn't faze Snake-Eyes. [No prizes for guessing who was carrying it,] he signed.

[Very prepared of them,] she signed back. [Wonder what Backstab is doing with a bomb . . . ]

[Backstab?]

[Jaye tells me that in some cultures, asking for a name is considered a death threat. So I had to name them.]

Snake-Eyes shook his head a little, and the quick rush of breath through his mask told Scarlett that he was laughing in his silent way. She had to agree with the sentiment, and though she couldn't quite bring herself to the point of laughing, it was encouraging nonetheless. The tension thinned just a little bit, and the thought that the alien hunters could make that kind of mistake was heartening. Still, they were getting nowhere. The violent crab aliens were as hostile as ever, and Scarlett knew they needed to change tactics.

Fortunately, she wasn't the only intel agent on the team. And while Scarlett was quite skilled at manipulating people-almost as skilled as she was at breaking bones-there was someone else who was even better.

The ranks parted, and Lady Jaye stepped forward. She was carrying—of all things—a javelin, clearly retrieved from one of the statues; it was strange to see her with it, but it rested on her shoulder quite naturally, and she moved with poise and confidence. The addition of the javelin, though, made her look more warlike than the slim woman normally would. It was a look that commanded respect.

"You put these things here," she said calmly. Black Box cocked his head. "You are the ones responsible for the destruction here. By all rights, our people should kill you all."

"Uh, Jaye?" Tunnel Rat piped up. "That may not be the best-" He was elbowed into silence by Beach Head.

Jaye's statement had gotten a definite reaction from the hunters. Black Box snarled and lunged, his blades coming dangerously close to Jaye's face before Buckingham grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back. The two hunters growled at each other, but after another tense moment, Black Box lowered his blades. Buckingham jerked his head towards the Joes . . . Or more specifically, towards Snake-Eyes and Storm Shadow, who were standing almost motionless with their eyes fixed on the hunters. Scarlett fought to keep her expression neutral. They made an impression, all right.

Black Box wasn't going to take the insult lying down, though. The mechanical voice rippled out of the darkness: "_This place is fucking cursed." _A rippling hiss of a laugh followed it, and chills ran down Scarlett's spine. Yes, they had made an impression, but the laugh poured cold water on her impending good spirits. One of those monsters had nearly taken down Snake . . . She was willing to bet they could win, but she didn't want to know how many people they would lose in the process. And that they had captured all those recordings from the Joes meant that either they had the entire temple bugged, or they were so stealthy that even the ninjas hadn't noticed them.

Aliens. She was thinking the word aliens . . . Suddenly, she missed the days when all they'd had to think about was a mad dictator created from the corpses of famous generals.

"But we have shared enemies," Jaye was continuing, still impassive. She lowered the javelin and prodded at one of the dead monsters. Its head, held on by only a few sticky gray and black strands, parted company from its spine. With one thrust, she stabbed the javelin through the head and levered it upwards. The dead black head rose, its teeth still dripping slime, and for a moment it was face-to-face with Black Box. Jaye held it, extended there: a symbol of the Joes' victory against the monsters, offered to the hunter. The message was clear. Accept it? We can do business. Rebuff us? This can just as easily be a challenge. Make your choice.

* * *

_The eldest of the Blooded, a great Honored of many years' hunting, couldn't restrain his laughter at the leader's irritation. Not only had the young Honored, the leader's personal choice, broken challenge and fled like prey with the only bomb they had, but the Oomans were proving surprisingly stubborn. The eldest Honored had killed many Oomans in his time, but only intelligent predators live to be old ones, and he could respect what the little soft-meats were trying to do._

_Oh, they could smell the fear. They knew the imposture for what it was, and it was no secret among the yautja that their leader was almost ready to order the Oomans killed. But the memory of what t__he _setg'-in pyode amedha _in black had done to the young Honored was fresh, and that sort of skill could be used. There had only been a few records of an Ooman ever defeating a yautja—the last before the eldest Blooded's memory, a handless Ooman called Galvarino. Without the bomb, they would need more hunters than they had planned on._

_ Hunting alongside Oomans, no matter how strong, was unthinkable if this were a sacred trial. But it wasn't: it was a simple slaughter, the yautja chosen for the task on the strength of their skills. Plans needed to be changed._

_ Nevertheless, the eldest Blooded paid close attention as his leader accepted the _kainde amedha _head from the little Ooman. _

_ He was old, for a hunter. It was hard to find a proper hunt that would raise his blood any more. This? This promised to be interesting._


	11. Dead Men Tell No Tales

**Author's Note:** In which a unit struggles to adapt to the new method of doing things, a yautja muses on the nature of technology, and a little more of the plan comes to light.

I'm sorry I took so long with this one! I'm doing NaNoWriMo again this year, in addition to the extra workload (I'm training a new rep for our company), so long-term fanfic pieces have sort of fallen behind. I'm winding up to the big climax, though, so I hope you guys stick with me just a bit longer.

A big thanks, as always, to all the wonderful people who've read and reviewed so far. (JJ Rust, how in God's name do you manage it?) And thanks of course to the Twitter gang—you guys know who you are—who got the ball rolling and provided me with a dozen synonyms for "slime."

**Rating:** T.

**Disclaimer: **G.I. Joe is the property of Hasbro, Inc. The Aliens and Predator franchises are property of 20th Century Fox Entertainment. I derive no profit from the use of these characters and concepts, and have received no compensation. Please accept this work in the spirit with which it is offered—as a work of respect and love, not an attempt to claim ownership or earn money from these intellectual properties.

* * *

**Chapter Eleven: Dead Men Tell No Tales**

First things first. Even as Black Box accepted the trophy from Jaye, Scarlett turned away and unhooked her radio from her belt. "Private Velasquez," she said calmly. "Private Velasquez, do you copy? What's your status?"

Nothing. Only a snow of static answered her. She paused for a moment, telling herself it was just the structure interfering with their communications, and tried again. "Private Velasquez. Private Hartman. Private Carlisle. This is Scarlett. Do you copy?"

Static. The three conscious peacekeepers exchanged glances.

"Chuckles," she said evenly. Stokes, Hayesworth, and Yutani followed her with their eyes as she turned to the undercover agent. "I want you on the radio at every halt. Keep trying until we raise those men. Soldiers? Take five, and check your gear. We're moving soon."

Lifeline immediately got to his feet. "Scarlett, we've got wounded here. Faraday's going to be unconscious for a long time, Snake-Eyes shouldn't even be walking, and Storm Shadow still hasn't been examined after that fit of his-"

"Nobody's getting let behind," Scarlett said firmly, cutting off the medic's protests. "Lifeline, I trust your judgment. But there's no chance of getting a medevac down here, the way back is blocked, and I'm certainly not leaving wounded under minimal guard with those bugs out there. Everybody stands a better chance if we stay together. Beach?"

The burly sergeant major was already unslinging his pack. "Y'need cord, Scarlett?"

"As much as you've got. We can't afford to have someone incapacitated by a travois or a litter." Scarlett eyed Yutani. The big peacekeeper had carried Storm Shadow with barely an effort, and Faraday definitely had less muscle than the ninja. "Yutani? Can you take Faraday?"

"As long as he keeps quiet," Yutani said calmly. "Alien monsters are one thing, but I'm not having that chatterbox gnawing my ear off at the same time."

Scarlett smiled a little and made a mental note: Yutani was adapting well to the Joes' ways of doing things, and it was definitely a good sign. G.I. Joe team members had become used to extreme situations over the years, and if her people were rattled, she couldn't imagine what the pacekeepers were going through. As Beach and Lifeline began to rig up a sling for Yutani and Faraday, she surveyed the group, checking them off in her mind and paying close attention to their mannerisms.

In her experience, there were a number of ways people could deal with the stress of a highly dangerous and confusing mission. Humor was probably one of the least damaging ones, and the one a lot of the Joes used; blowing off steam in semi-violent pranks and discovering new ways to covertly terrorize their superiors and support divisions caused a hell of a lot of paperwork, but it also showed evidence of good coping skills. If you could laugh, you were less likely to scream. Yutani hadn't cracked wise much, but he showed the outward signs of a steady disposition and a quiet, razor-sharp set of wits. Despite the battle and the loss of more than half the peacekeepers, he remained fixed on his objective. Only the set of his jaw and the tension in his shoulders gave him away: Yutani hadn't gotten frightened, he'd gotten _angry. _

The same, she thought ruefully, had gone for Faraday. But he wore his emotions on his sleeve, and like his broad sense of humor, his anger had quickly gotten out of control. Chasing that alien down the corridor had run him right into Backstab's grip, and Snake-Eyes had wound up in a bizarre monster honor duel. When—not if, _when—_they got through with this, she was going to have words with Faraday. And Faraday's commanding officer. And possibly _his _commanding officer.

Hayesworth and Stokes were interesting, and possibly worrying, cases. Stokes, the medic, seemed to be taking refuge from the craziness in procedure: he was double-checking everything, every last bandage and every suture, with a maniacal thoroughness that was clearly beginning to irritate Lifeline. His attempts at redoing Snake-Eyes' bandages had been met with a Silent Death Glare of level-eleven strength, and since then he had settled down a little, but he kept going through his kit and checking everyone over in case they had spontaneously developed sucking chest wounds in the last five minutes.

Hayesworth, on the other hand, was riding the adrenaline train. He had shown good control during the alien firefight, pulling together with the Joes and helping to pick off the ceiling-crawling monsters, but it seemed to have given him more confidence than might be handled safely. It reminded Scarlett of young trainees in Vietnam; dumped into the meat grinder of a bloody offensive, staring down their first kills, they would gleefully stick the Ace of Spades in their helmet webbing and write death threats all over their gear. Some had just liked killing, but others used it as a way of whistling past the graveyard. If they told themselves they were gods of death, then it might as well be true, right? Scarlett resolved to keep an eye on that one.

The rest of her team was in pretty good condition, all things considered. Tunnel Rat was clearly spooked by the bugs, even after all this time, but he was notoriously good in tight situations (no pun intended) and even if he was afraid, he wasn't going to let it control him. She could count on verbal outbursts, but a steady hand. Beach Head's general dislike for Cobra had only increased after hearing the recording the hunters had played, and he seemed to be taking the existence of each black bug as a personal insult. Unlike 'Rat, though, he didn't make a production of his feelings: after helping secure Faraday on Yutani's back, he took over carrying most of the other sergeant major's gear without complaint and now stood still and alert, forever scanning the three corridors for movement.

Chuckles and Lifeline seemed to have had the same reaction: nothing to see here, folks, move along. If Chuckles was feeling anything extreme, it would be hard for Scarlett to tell—the man was a consummate actor and had a poker face like no other. Normally, that would have gone double for Lady Jaye, but the few women of G.I. Joe shared a close bond and Scarlett didn't have to look very hard to know Jaye was frightened. Not that that was surprising; Scarlett was clamping down tight on her own residual fear, refusing to let it control her, but humans are hardwired to be afraid of the unknown and it was still there. But in addition to being afraid, Jaye was an experienced soldier with superb self-control, and the fear wouldn't rule her. As for Lifeline, the only outward sign of his own worry was a very slight quaver in his voice and a sudden tendency towards making statements that were guaranteed to get a loud reaction from Beach Head. He was clinging to normalcy, even if he had to piss off a sergeant major to do it. Good for him.

The ninjas were standing a little apart from the group. Storm Shadow was speaking to Snake-Eyes in a low voice, using what sounded like an obscure rural dialect of Japanese—a clan argot, perhaps. Snake-Eyes was replying not with the usual shorthand signs, but with fingerspelling, and he was parsing out replies in the same tongue. From their gestures, though, it was clear that they were talking about weapons.

And then there were the hunters. Scarlett turned her stare to them extremely reluctantly; who knew where they stood with those things, or how they might react to being looked over? But they were part of the equation now and, in a way, indirectly responsible for the whole mess. They wouldn't do any good to her as an unknown factor. So she forced herself to consider them detachedly—not as any number of confusing and distracting nouns (hunter, monster, alien) but as soldiers and resources.

Black Box and Buckingham had drawn back several paces, and seemed to be discussing something in their strange hissing language. Black Box's movements were jerky and tense, making Scarlett certain that he was definitely not happy with the situation, but Buckingham seemed calm. He stood with his head bowed slightly, receiving orders (or possibly a serious reaming-out) from the commander with perfect equanimity. Fang Face, by contrast, was putting on a major display of being intimidating: puffed-out chest, all weapons on display, stance a little too wide to be comfortable. The irony was that he had looked more intimidating before; now, trying too hard, he made Scarlett think of one of the high-school boys who had been trying to show that they weren't scared of the skinny, brassy-haired black-belt girl. That drew a small smile from her, and a corresponding snarl from Fang Face.

"All right," she said. Heads turned, and her troops focused on her. The faces looking back at her were dirtied and bruised, but determined and some a little fearful, but all were waiting intently on her words. She had a sudden urge to say "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears," but controlled it. (Damn Jaye, getting her back into Shakespeare.) "Listen up, everybody. We've got a pretty simple problem here.

"If the intelligence we've gotten from our new friends is accurate, then we're looking at a crisis situation." No sense in sugarcoating it. "We know now that the bugs we've been fighting are actually aliens—sorry? 'Rat? Chuckles? Can you zip your lips and let me get through this briefing sometime today? Thank you. Aliens. Get used to the word, because we're going to be using it a lot." She crossed her arms, secretly grateful for the pair of incredulous Joes' interruption: anything to keep the collective thoughts from turning to the disaster that their last fight with the monsters had been. "There's a lot of them, more than anticipated. Possibly one for every AWOL Dreadnok and Viper. And it seems that we have Cobra Commander to thank for the bugs' sudden population spike."

Scarlett turned to the remaining peacekeepers, letting herself soften just a little. They were wide-eyed and tense, but they'd pulled together so far, and under circumstances that they most definitely had not signed up for. "Men, you've shown yourselves to be damn good soldiers. I know I can trust you to carry on like you have before." She raised her arm in a brief salute, mirrored only seconds later by Hayesworth, Stokes, and Yutani. As she'd hoped, her straightforward attitude was having a calming effect on the most nervous of the two.

"From here on out, nobody goes looking for trouble. Take a lesson from Faraday: going off half-cocked or getting worked up will only bring more grief for all of us. We're going to find our way to Bug Central and the source of this trouble—that Queen our hunter friends showed us. Chances are that's where Cobra Commander is. And we're going to clean the place out as we go.

"Keep the column tight. MOUT every corner, and that includes the ceiling, too. Remember—short, controlled bursts. They're deadly at short range, and so is their blood, so don't give them that opportunity." Scarlett's jaw tightened as she glanced at the ninjas. "That goes for you two also. Whenever possible, do _not _get close. But-" And there had to be a but, with those two "-I'm trusting you to use your own best judgment. Don't die."

There was a shifting of huge feet in the darkness, and another hissing, bubbling laugh from Black Box. Scarlett didn't turn, but her voice grew a couple of degrees colder. "As for our brand-new allies . . . I rather get the impression that they do their own thing. Be cautious." Another laugh. Scarlett was really beginning to dislike that creature.

"Finish the gear check, everyone. Snake, Storm, I want you watching the perimeter."

A couple of the soldiers sagged visibly as they relaxed, and low whispers began to echo throughout the chamber. Scarlett unslung her pack and began to quickly look over her own equipment, keeping half an ear on the troops' conversations even while she worked. People seemed a little calmer now. The hunters were still standing apart, but she had the uncomfortable feeling that Buckingham was looking at her.

There was a scrape of a boot, and a shadow fell across her. A big shadow. "Hi, Beach," she said without looking up. "Everything okay?"

"Yer spendin' too much time with the spooks," the big sergeant major observed. He crouched down next to her, his back to the main body of the group; to a casual eye, it looked as if he was looking at her gear. Scarlett still didn't glance up: she could hear the tension in his voice without looking at his face.

"Scarlett—ain't mah job to nitpick yer plans," Beach began in a low voice. "But Ah gotta ask. That recordin'. Cobra Commander said 'eggs.' And Ah dunno 'bout the rest of these knuckleheads, but Ah can't help wonderin' if we're missin' something."

"I know we are." Scarlett's own voice was quiet and level. "We're missing a step. Or . . ." Now she glanced up at him. The sergeant major's brow was creased under his balaclava. "Or missing a part."

"The eggs go inta the person. That I get." Beach Head's tone carried a hint of disgust. "And they come out little versions of those bugs. An' if that queen-thing lays them eggs, then we got ourselves one disturbin' cycle of life. But ya see that thing Faraday pulled outta the mess back there, before the ceilin' started movin'? The crab skeleton thing? Sure as hell didn't look like one of the bugs."

"Which means," Scarlett said, testing the slide on her sidearm, "that there's something we haven't seen yet. If we're lucky, it'll be something small."

"We ain't been lucky this whole gawddamn trip." Beach Head's brown eyes were quizzical. "So why ain't you told everyone there's somethin' more out there?"

Scarlett shook her head. "It's a catch-twenty-two, Beach. I trust the Joes, but the peacekeepers are still something of an unknown quantity. If I say 'oh, by the way, there still might be an alien we haven't seen yet, keep an eye out for it,' it could make them more alert. Or it could make them paranoid and trigger-happy. I'm betting that if something crablike jumps out at them, they're still going to shoot it. If they're _expecting _it, the anticipation will just make them less reliable."

That drew a nod from Beach Head. "Ya may be the damned worst thing that ever happened ta frat regs in this unit," he said, a grin creasing the fabric of the balaclava, "but ya got yer head in the right place, Scarlett."

There was a snort from the other side of the chamber, and both Beach and Scarlett looked up. Storm Shadow gave them an innocent look.

"Sometimes," Beach said, "Ah really hate that man's ears."

* * *

_The Oomans were preparing for battle in their own way. All three of the remaining yautja had some command of the various Ooman languages, including the strange, slithery tongue that these ones spoke, and it entertained the leader and the eldest to watch and listen. They themselves were already prepared: a yautja is never unready for the hunt, and they had as yet no injuries to treat. The leader was highly amused by the Oomans' behavior and show of bravado, but his pride was clearly smarting, and he mocked them to the eldest and the youngest. The youngest laughed along, but the eldest kept his thoughts to himself: he followed the leader as the best and first of the Blooded, but he was not of the same clan and had no business soothing his wounded ego. _

_ He had to admit, he was fascinated. In days past, when he had hunted the Oomans, they had been . . . disappointing, mostly. Some few specimens, the ones whose bones he now wore as trophies, had been greatly ingenious and even dealt him injury. But though their planet and people had long been useful as a means to breed the _kainde amedha, _being regarded with fear and trembling was hardly a satisfying way to hunt. When technology had been magic to them, they were more likely to fall at his feet than go for his throat. Some, like the disgraced Honored, had found satisfaction in that kind of slaughter, but the eldest had wanted more of a challenge._

_ Now, though? He watched, thoughtfully, as the female issued orders. In only a hundred years of this world's years, they had surged forward, creating warriors like the _setg'-in pyode amedha. _Their technology was not yet close to that of the yautja, but they didn't fear it. Oomans were becoming . . . interesting. _

_

* * *

_

Of the two corridors, the southward one—with its low ceiling and uncomfortable closeness—led back in the direction that they had first planned to go. But the eastward tunnel was the one that the attack had come from, and after weighing the odds, Scarlett pointed east. First, though, she deputized the ninjas to finally fire the signal flare up the airshaft. Chuckles tried the radios again, but it was pointless: for whatever the reason, they couldn't raise either the three displaced peacekeepers or the base on the surface. Scarlett hoped that Private Velasquez and company had the good sense to listen to her, but she was beginning to get that sinking feeling that told her not to hope too hard.

They moved out. The order was much the same, with the peacekeepers in among the Joes and the medics carefully distributed, but this time Sgt. Major Yutani wouldn't have as easy of a time defending himself. Despite his unconscious burden, though, he was still heavily armed, and had festooned himself with grenades. Ordinarily, Scarlett wouldn't have allowed a new member of her command to hang a grenade from his belt _by the ring_, but she was beginning to get a good sense of Yutani now. If he was crazy, he was their kind of crazy.

The hunters paid no attention to Scarlett's organized line and pressed onwards at the head of the column, often vanishing into the shadows far ahead of them. Despite their strange ornaments and intimidating stature, they seemed to make almost no noise, and seeing them fade noiselessly in and out of sight made the hair on the back of Scarlett's neck stand on end. She couldn't see Snake-Eyes' expression, but she knew the ninjas were scrutinizing the hunters' technique closely. They were assessing the competition—or possibly the enemy. Once-drawn lines had become blurred in an uncomfortably short period of time.

For a long time, everything was silent. They moved as methodically as they could, trying at first to keep some sense of direction, but the tunnels seemed endless. Between hundreds of years' worth of damage and the strange shift that the architecture had gone through not long before, all their prior observations of the temple were now completely useless. Chuckles kept a rough record of the turns they had made and the courses they followed, jotting it all down in a notebook he kept in the pocket of his BDUs, but where they were relative to the base they had no way of knowing. They navigated by simple tracking: follow the slime, and you'll find the bugs.

Soon, the elaborate displays and carved reliefs began to vanish under more thick, gleaming black resin. The staircase they were following took a downward plunge, circling around a wide round shaft that was strung wall-to-wall with crystalline strands of the stuff. Niches lined the staircase, but the statues placed in them were practically cocooned in slime, and no features could be discerned.

"Watch your footing," Scarlett whispered. "Take it slow and watch your six. Storm, hear anything?"

The white-clad ninja nodded. "We're getting close," he reported in a low voice, just loud enough for the soldiers to hear. "There's scraping and hissing—at least five of them. They're not moving quickly, though, so they may not know we're here."

"I can live with that," Scarlett murmured.

Moving slowly, two by two, they descended the staircase. The steps were broad and shallow, but there was no guardrail, and the slime made the rock slick and treacherous. With few options, the soldiers hugged the wall, clinging to the convoluted ridges made by the hardened resin and making a definite effort not to look downwards into the pit. Stokes especially seemed not too fond of heights; he quickly abandoned all pretense of calm and flattened himself against the wall with leechlike insistence, his fingers white-knuckled where they clung to every possible nook and cranny.

Halfway down, though, something made him lose his grip. With an unearthly screech, the medic stumbled away from the wall, slipping on the clear slick slime and reeling forward towards the edge of the stairs. Before Scarlett had even begun to turn, though, his shriek was cut off by a strangled squawk as Lady Jaye caught him by the pack.

"Oh Jesus . . ." Stokes muttered, whimpering a little. "Jesus . . . oh Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus Jesus Jesus . . ."

Tunnel Rat and Chuckles grabbed for him as well, bracing Lady Jaye and helping to reel the shuddering medic back in. "Calm down, buddy," Tunnel Rat said conversationally as he helped Stokes back towards the wall. "You're not dead yet. Ease off. Ease off. Here, hang onto this, okay?" He steered Stokes in the direction of the nearest cocooned statue—the one he had been clinging to before losing his nerve. "You're gonna be okay."

When he saw the statue, though, Stokes flinched again. "I'm not—I'm not-" he began. "It's-"

"Gawddamn it," Beach Head muttered. "At least our useless medic ain't a whiner about it. Just grab the gawddamn statue." A silent nod from Yutani.

"I'm not whining!" Stokes snapped angrily. His face was white in the light of the lanterns. _"And it's not a statue!" _He raised his own lantern, the beam trembling, and focused it on the cocooned mass in the niche.

"Son of a-"

"What the _fuck?"_

" . . . that's a new one on me."

The light glinted off the hardened resin, refracting through the cloudy shell and bouncing off the strange gluey strings that now formed an intricate crystalline web. The figure stood like a statue, upright as if it had been standing at attention, almost completely encased in the gleaming mass. Only a few dirtied, crusted pieces of protruding fabric hinted at a very familiar uniform: dull blue, for the cannon-fodder Vipers, with one edge of a worn patch that Cobra had issued to the survivors of the Battle of Springfield. It hadn't done this man much good.

That was bad, but three things made it worse.

A gaping hole in the chest, the edge of a broken rib glinting in the light of Stokes' lantern.

A corpse of a bizarre, crablike monster suctioned to the dead man's face, its whip-long tail wrapped firmly around his neck.

A set of shackles, industrial and professional, binding the dead man in place.

Static crackled from the shadows further down the steps, and the hissing recording of Cobra Commander's voice echoed out of the pit. _". . . send Major Bludd to check on those Vipers; the eggs must be incubating by now." _And the laugh, so gleeful_. "I _love_ science experiments."_


	12. Camp Carnage

**Author's Note:** We're coming up on the big final battle, guys. Sorry if this one is a little scattered; the story evolved significantly from its original plotline, and I had to kind of jerk it back into place here. And yes, another fight scene. Hope they aren't getting boring!

The use of Demolisher was suggested by fellow author CrystalOfEllinon, who picked him because . . . well, frankly, because Demolisher's best-known trait is that he's almost immune to pain. And given the mechanics of chestbursting, well, I kinda had to use it.

A note on said chestbursting: in most of the Aliens movies, when a person goes through the process, they die almost immediately. The thing is, the alien is supposed to be implanted in the digestive tract, and while painful and likely fatal, the chestbursting process wouldn't normally be an instakill as far as I can tell. Bloodloss takes more than a second to murder you. I was forced to conclude that the trauma and shock of the pain would be a big factor in the instant death. Someone who doesn't feel pain like we do would have a much different experience.

**Rating:** T.

**Disclaimer: **G.I. Joe is the property of Hasbro, Inc. The Aliens and Predator franchises are property of 20th Century Fox Entertainment. I derive no profit from the use of these characters and concepts, and have received no compensation. Please accept this work in the spirit with which it is offered—as a work of respect and love, not an attempt to claim ownership or earn money from these intellectual properties.

* * *

**Chapter Twelve: Camp Carnage**

At the base of the circular stairs, they found the Dreadnoks' and Vipers' camp. Or, at least, what was left of it.

It was easy to see why they had picked the spot they did. The echoing shaft would catch any sounds far above and reflect it downward, but the camp itself was tucked into a recessed chamber just off the shaft itself, deadening most of the sounds that its inhabitants would make. There was only one corridor leading away from the stairwell, so attackers could come from only two directions at most—not bad odds for Vipers, who could be considered decently capable.

In theory, at any rate. The camp was destroyed. Sleeping bags had been ripped in half, weapons thrown aside or torn apart, the stone underfoot pitted and melted by sprays of acidic blood. A cheap aluminum cooking pot had actually been crushed underfoot by one gigantic claw. A few bodies were there, but they were barely recognizable as human: they were sacks of torn meat wrapped in scraps of cloth, clearly too ruined even for the aliens to drag away. To judge by the blood trails, though, they hadn't had the same issues with some of the other troopers.

The three aliens moved cautiously among the destruction, their postures alert, their movements quick and birdlike. The humans moved more slowly—stopping to let a couple of the peacekeepers retch. Storm Shadow dropped to his knees and began to examine the drag marks and bloodstains in the dirt, his face grim.

There was a low growl from Beach Head. The sound was dark and almost animalistic, making the hairs on the back of Scarlett's neck stand up. His eyes were fixed on one of the mangled bodies, a Dreadnok by the shreds of leather still littering the corpse.

"Ah ain't a fan of these idiots, Scarlett," he said in low voice, "but that ain't the way for anyone ta go."

"I'm with you on that one, Beach," Scarlett said. She swallowed the sick sensation in her throat, and kept her expression steely and unflinching, keenly aware of the piercing gazes of the hunters. Buckingham especially kept glancing in her direction.

Scarlett was prepared to bet that in real life, inter-species interactions weren't as easy as they were on _Star Trek. _The big hunter's expression was impossible to read through its metal mask—and even if she could see it, would she have been able to know what it meant? She had to keep mentally adjusting, remembering that these weren't people she was dealing with. Black Box made a wet gurgling hiss as he picked up the remains of a severed head; Scarlett couldn't stop herself from grimacing just a little, and Buckingham's stare remained fixed on her.

"Hey, Lifeline," Tunnel Rat said. The voice of the underground specialist shattered the deathly stillness of the chamber, making the humans breathe a little easier for a moment or two. "Lifeline, man, what does this look like to you?"

'Rat was crouched beside a strange, leathery . . . thing. It was about the size of a large wastebasket and made of tough, coarse-grained skin, its insides hollowed out and lined with more gluey gray slime. The top had apparently been peeled open, splitting neatly into four petal-like flaps, and more slimy residue lead away from it and into the destroyed remains of the camp.

The medic dropped onto his knees beside Tunnel Rat, slapping his hands away from the thing. "Don't touch that!" he said sharply. 'Rat flinched sharply. "If they have acid for blood, who knows what their embryonic fluids could contain?" He pulled on a pair of gloves and, picking up a snapped rifle stock, probed the edges of the object's opening.

"'Embryonic . . . '" Beach Head's voice was less tense, though now layered with disgust. "That's one a their gawddamn _eggs?"_

Lifeline frowned. "I believe so." Setting down the rifle stock, he gently touched a finger to the gluey liquid, pulling it back a half-second later. Everyone winced in anticipation, but there was no hiss of acid or stink of burning skin. "We almost have a complete life cycle, I think. The crab things come out of these eggs; they get the spawn into the . . . hosts . . . where they hatch and emerge as nymphs. The nymph likely grows into the things that we've seen. But this?" He tapped the leathery shell. "This _has _to be the work of some kind of hive queen. None of the drone monsters were structured to lay this kind of egg."

"Which means that the Dreadnoks and Vipers were hauled away to be hosts for more of the drones." Scarlett's eyes narrowed. "Storm—that's a lot of blood. Do you think they could've gone far?"

The ninja shook his head as he stood. "There's too many loose limbs here for the number of bodies. If they hoped to keep their prisoners alive, they would need to immobilize and implant them as soon as possible." He swept a speck of dirt off the hem of his gi, his blue eyes sharp and cold. "They must be nearby. All we have to do is follow the blood."

"Which they'll be expecting." A germ of an idea, unpleasant as it was, was beginning to form. Scarlett snapped her fingers, and the troops gathered around. The hunters ignored her.

"Jaye?" Scarlett murmured. "Jaye, we're going to need them."

Lady Jaye nodded and collared Storm Shadow and Snake-Eyes. The three of them marched across the open space of the devastated camp, the ninjas on either side of Jaye like an honor guard. The slim brunette paused in front of Black Box, her arms crossed. Black Box growled and rose up to his full height, looming over her. Jaye only met his stare head-on.

"We have a plan," she said, her tone calm. Once again, Scarlett mentally marveled at her fellow Joe's ability to keep a cool facade: you would have thought she was talking to the jogger who let his dog take a crap on her lawn. "A plan to defeat our shared enemies. Your skills are vital, and by the skulls on your belt, you've taken many lives before. Will you join us in this hunt?"

Black Box moved almost too fast to be seen. One hand lashed out, claws arrowing towards Jaye's throat. A guttural roar ripped from his throat, muffled by the metal mask-

-and cut short abruptly when his claws glanced off the crossed swords of Snake-Eyes and Storm Shadow. Jaye hadn't even had time to flinch.

There was a moment of dead silence. Then Black Box drew his hand back and, abruptly, burst into another hissing laugh, throwing his head back as if he were howling at the moon. Scarlett eased her grip on her gun as the hunter guffawed: though his posture said he was amused, muscles and tendons stood out thick and tense under his leathery skin. He was still on edge, but he was putting on a show of amusement . . . Ahh, the old "I meant to do that." A leader of predators who's shown up by a weaker species isn't a leader any more, is he?

Jaye stepped back, her face pale but her expression still calm, and the hunters followed her across the campsite. Soon they were all gathered, ringing Scarlett once more.

She spoke quickly and quietly. Following the blood trail would lead the Joes to the aliens, and possibly to their queen as well, but it would also lead to the prisoners—something that those aliens would want to protect. If one of the alien drones reached the surface, it could slaughter the unprepared peacekeeping troops and set off a panic: they had to be dealt with, here, in the temple where conditions could be controlled.

"All right," Scarlett said quietly. "Here's the plan."

* * *

Consciousness hit Demolisher like a fist—something the Dreadnok was all too familiar with. He sucked in a breath, filling his strangely tense chest and throat, and shook his head to clear out the cobwebs. Something thick coated half his face, gumming his eyelashes together; when he blinked hard, the lashes were torn out of the skin. Not that he noticed: of all the Dreadnoks, Demolisher was the most notorious for his pain tolerance, and something that small didn't even register.

He squinted, trying to take his bearings. His hands and feet were glued firmly to the wall with masses of hardened slime, and the surface his back was pressed against curved slightly, like the pillars they had seen in some part of this fucked-up old place. Pillars—yeah, pillars, big ones, a whole load of them carved out of the rock and scattered throughout what seemed like a cave. A chill wind blew through the columns, making an eerie moaning noise. The gloom was almost too thick to penetrate.

As he concentrated, ignoring the aches of the muscles in his chest and throat (by the feeling of it, he'd busted a few ribs. Oh, well.), his single eye began to adjust to the dimness. It was impossible to see beyond a few feet, but the nearest pillar was only a couple of yards away, and the massive shape laminated to the stone there was impossible to mistake: Road Pig, all seven feet and who-the-fuck-knows-how-many hundred pounds of him, similarly stuck in place and blinking stupidly as he began to come around.

"We say, this is a most inauspicious occurrence," Road Pig observed, frowning and licking his lips. "It would appear that **Road Pig n-n-not happy.**"

Demolisher sucked in a breath, trying to fill his lungs and chase away the irritating pricking of the broken ribs. That was going to get seriously annoying if they were stuck here for a few more hours. "Pick a personality and stick to it, would you?" he said irritably. "Now's not the time for your multiple identity shit. Can you bust out of there?"

Road Pig let out a guttural roar and strained against the strange glue. The tendons stood out in his neck, bulging dangerously like worms under the skin. With a snarl, he ripped one arm free, scraping off patches of skin against the crystallized slime and sending droplets of blood flying. **"D-d-dat hurts!" **he said, his voice a mix between a growl and a whine. **"M-mean monsters, hurtin' Road Pig!"**

The ache in Demolisher's chest was beginning to intensify, and for a moment, he thought he felt an actual stab of real pain. That surprised him; it had been a long time since something had gotten through to him like that. The broken ribs must be worse than he thought. Grunting a little, he shifted his torso as much as he could, trying to get comfortable. "Nice job," he snapped sardonically, ignoring the buzzing sensation in his head. Something somewhere near was making a strange hissing noise, and it was raising the hairs on the back of his neck. "One down, three to go." For a moment, his words were cut off by a sickly sensation rising in his throat. The hissing grew louder. "Now hurry your fat ass up and get us out of here!"

Road Pig jerked his head around to glare at Demolisher. **"Road Pig gonna-"** he began, but never finished the sentence. His jaw dropped, his eyes bulged, and he gawked like he had just spotted Zarana naked. **"R-r-road Pig knows—**uh-we hate to cause distress to our comrade-in-arms, Demolisher, but we cannot avoid noticing that you appear to have a xenomorphic lifeform protruding from your abdominal cavity!"

It took Demolisher a moment to work out exactly what Road Pig/Donald had said. Xeno-whatever-the-fuck was way over his head—only Zartan, Buzzer, and Donald used those kind of ten-dollar words—but he got the rest of it okay, and with a startled squawk he jammed his chin into his chest and stared downwards.

A monster was protruding from his chest.

"Oh, _fuck," _Demolisher said.

It hissed, extending tiny, trembling claws, and Demolisher realized that . . . oh, wow, that felt weird . . . all that pain and stuff he hadn't been paying attention to had come along when it burst through his breastbone. There was a lot of blood, and all of it belonged to him. His vision began to fade at the edges.

Something thudded into the ground in front of him, and Demolisher recoiled as much as he could. Glossy black jaws opened, dripping, at the sight of the squalling monster in his chest. It cocked its head for a moment, seemingly surprised, and Demolisher tried to give it the finger. His arms were still glued down. His vision was fading rapidly now, black spots appearing—hard to tell, he thought vaguely, against a scene that was mostly black anyway. He thought he heard gunfire somewhere, and the monster jerked its head again, the tiny thing in his chest squalling and hissing pitifully. The thing that came out of him.

Jesus, that was disgusting.

"You look like a Bruce," he said vaguely, his head sagging onto his chest again. "Or maybe a Howard. You're fuckin' ugly enough to be a Howard." As his vision faded into darkness, he reconsidered. "Nah . . . kinda like Howard Johnson's . . . maybe a Bert?"

Something exploded, and the monster in front of him leaped, skittering off into the shadows. A bloom of brilliant red and white fire glowed dimly in Demolisher's dying sight, lighting up the scene for just a second. Flare. Huh. He liked flares. His eyes drooped closed.

Fade to black.

* * *

Flares plummeted from the ceiling, dropped by black-and-white-clothed figures that clung easily to the rock pillars. The darkness was stripped away in an instant by the explosion of harsh light, and the scene revealed itself. The forest of columns was swarming with black bugs.

Bugs that couldn't be allowed to get close. This was the crucial part of the plan: most of the humans would be flare-blinded for a few awful seconds, but they would need that light to take away their opponents' advantage of stealth. Even as the creatures shrieked, sensing the light and the intrusion, the team in the heights of the hall went to work.

With one flick of their hands, Snake-Eyes and Storm Shadow sent throwing spikes raining down on the horde of monsters. Some missed their marks, some ricocheted, but some some sank deep and did their job. One, two, three, four of the aliens recoiled, their bodies jerking and trembling, as the liquid coating the spikes made contact with their bloodstreams.

Storm Shadow had almost cackled in amusement when Scarlett revealed that part of the plan. Lifeline was less happy, since it had involved burgling his and Stokes' small supply of sodium hydroxide ("What if one of you idiots gets yourselves hurt, and I have to sterilize equipment for emergency surgery?"), but needs must when the devil drives. Now the ninjas' throwing spikes were saturated with the powerful base, and four aliens were having their bloodstreams turned into baking soda volcanos.

It wouldn't last. But the panicked flailing of the four, and the angry shrieks of the others as they spotted the intruders in the rafters, provided just enough time. Eyes still streaming from the sudden light, the troops on the ground sighted on their targets and fired. Alien blood sprayed across the dirty floor.

Scarlett had hoped to kill most of the monsters before they could get too close, but that wasn't the case. The drones here seemed older, stronger, and though they bled and lost limbs, they simply leaped faster. Ten yards, five yards, and then they were on them.

A full-grown warrior drone pounced on Scarlett, jaws wide, tackling her to the ground. Hooked claws scraped roughly over her chestplate and scored deep grooves in the armor even as it snapped its teeth at her head. Scarlett's skull slammed roughly into the rock, sending stars dancing in front of her eyes, but the jaws had only closed on hair.

"Get—off—me!" she grunted, gasping for breath under the weight of the thing. It keened and snapped again, its limbs and spiked tail thrashing like a cockroach as it fought to sink its claws into a weak spot, but Scarlett was using ever dirty trick she knew and it couldn't get a grip on her. Her chestplate gave an awful groan as one talon broke through a layer of metal.

Something came plummeting down from on high, dropped by an eagle-eyed ninja, and Scarlett seized it. One twist of her fingers popped the unlit flare. As the alien's head jerked towards hers, mouth wide open, Scarlett jammed the blazing flare between its jaws and shoved her feet into its stomach as hard as she could. It went tumbling backwards, its screeches muffled by the sizzling of white fire in its mouth.

She thought she heard another of those distinctive hunter laughs, but now wasn't the time to worry about that. She scrambled to her feet, drew a beat on the flailing alien, and squeezed off three shots. Down it went, its spinal cord severed, fire still lighting up its now-shattered skull.

Illuminated by the red and white flares, the cavernous hall of pillars had become Hell. Humans, too few humans, did their best to stand their ground against the insectoid creatures that did their best to tear them to pieces. Stokes . . . oh God, Stokes was down, shrieking as alien jaws ripped off an arm and shoulder. The blood looked almost black in the light of the flares. Chuckles and Beach Head were being backed into a corner, barely keeping their attackers at bay. The thunder of automatic gunfire echoed and re-echoed, mixing with the aliens' screeching.

Time for phase two. Scarlett gave the high sign, and light distorted and bent as three barely-visible figures rappelled their way down from the ceiling. A third set of voices, roaring in a deeper and more guttural tone, joined the chorus of mayhem. The hunters were ready to go to work.

She had never seen them at their best before. As they flickered into the visible spectrum, small cannons levered into place on their shoulders, the tips glowing with eerie blue energy as they powered up. Balls of brilliant plasma slammed into the aliens, sending the most fortunate ones tumbling end over end; others were simply blown to pieces in showers of acid blood. Scarlett instinctively ducked behind a pillar to shield herself from the deadly rain.

Against the humans, the aliens had been more than a match. They had attacked in droves, certain of quick victory and maybe even taking new hosts for the spawn. They hadn't suspected that they were being winnowed down and finished off.

The balance of power had shifted. The humans and hunters blazed their way through the shrieking mass of monsters, driven by the bloody exhilaration of violence and revenge. Scarlett heard the roar as Beach Head exploded out of the corner he and Chuckles had been driven into, and the report of the sergeant major's favorite .45. They were winning. The aliens were almost dead or driven off. They were _winning._

Then the bellow was cut short by a damp squawk, and Scarlett let out a curse.

The aliens that had boxed in Beach and Chuckles were dead, their corpses oozing acid. Chuckles was pale, but alive. Beach Head, though, was slumped against a slime-covered pillar. His mask was in shreds, and his face—his _face?_

Unable to believe what she was seeing, Scarlett dodged around a flailing, dying alien and sprinted towards Beach. Something was wrong—no, something was covering his face, a wriggling mass of slimy ridges. Beach let out a strangled grunt as a whiplike tail encircled his neck, tightening mercilessly, and glistening arachnoid limbs locked into place. He staggered as it cut off his air supply.

"Beach!" Scarlett yelled. Her foot slipped on a slimy patch of rock and she landed hard on her side a few yards from the struggling sergeant major, her wind almost knocked out. Her next word was barely a wheeze. "Beach-"

The shrieks were dying out. The commotion was almost gone. They had won. Scarlett knew it even as she staggered to her feet again, but the whole of her attention was focused on Beach Head's nightmarish attacker. Beach Head's fingers were bleeding as he clawed at it, but his skin was quickly growing pale as he lost air, and its grip never slackened. Still wheezing, Scarlett groped at the thing as best she could, fighting for a grip on the legs that were wrapped around Beach's head. Nothing seemed to work.

_ Then we got ourselves one disturbin' cycle of life. _

Another grunt from the sergeant major as Scarlett's fingers slipped on the legs. The thing flexed a little, only tightening its grip on Beach's skull. His clawing fingers were beginning to turn blue.

Then—oh God—one hand fell loose. It groped across the ground, fumbling blindly, and snagged the discarded .45. Even as the other hand weakened, Beach raised the .45 and pressed the muzzle against the side of his head.

"Beach!" Scarlett burst out. "Don't-"

The gun fired.

Even as Scarlett rocked back, horrified, there was a thin shriek of pain. The crab alien's limbs flailed as it ripped itself away from the sergeant major's head, spewing a lumpy gray liquid from an orifice in the center of its underside. Its tail detached, and it rolled across the floor in an agony, flailing and leaving trails of acid blood-

-And Beach was rising from the ground. His eyes were wide, his mask gone, lips flared and teeth still defiantly clenched. He whipped the .45 forward and shot three times, the reports resounding in the almost-quiet hall. The crab flailed as the bullets tore into it, splattering more of its thin yellow blood across the floor.

One more well-aimed shot, and it exploded into a loose bag of guts. The shattered limbs twitched to a stop.

Almost unable to believe it, Scarlett turned to Beach Head. He was still pale, his lips blue-tinged, but he was whole: the only thing that had changed was the rapidly-rising purple bruises where the alien's tail and legs had clung.

"Fuckin' bugs," he said. His voice was strangled and hoarse, but there was a hard light in his eyes. "Ah coulda told 'em they don't facefuck no goddamned Airborne Ranger."

"How did you-" Chuckles managed. "What the-"

Scarlett glanced at Beach Head. Then at the corpse of the crab. Then back at Beach Head. "I don't believe it," she said finally. "You didn't shoot your head. You shot _it _through the side."

Beach Head spat on the corpse and tucked the .45 back into its holster. "It's six inches thick, easy," he said, massaging the bruises on his face. "Hard part was knowin' where my big ugly nose ended an' the thing began. Didn't want to break that underbelly an' get a facefulla acid."

There was a soft slithering noise, and Snake-Eyes and Storm Shadow came sliding down the nearest pillars. Their clothes were dirty and covered in rock dust, and both of them were out of throwing spikes. Even as Snake-Eyes wrapped one arm around Scarlett, though, he saluted Beach Head with the other.

"You magnificent bastard," Storm Shadow added, a note of near-admiration in his voice.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Beach Head coughed and rubbed his face and neck again. "Gawddamn it, Ah sound like Ah got laryngitis . . . We all know y'all are gonna be back ta tormentin' me in no time. Let's get this place cleaned up."

* * *

The captured Dreadnoks and Vipers were dead, holes torn in their chests. Some of the creatures had hatched only recently; the latest corpses were still warm, and without the drones around to guard them, the newly-born nymph aliens were squalling on the ground in puddles of their hosts' blood. It might have been almost sympathetic if Scarlett hadn't known those same hosts. One shot dispatched each nymph.

The hunters had played their part admirably, and without the backstabbing or indiscriminate slaughter that Scarlett had half expected. Buckingham's eyes were still uncomfortably fixed on her, but Black Box and Fang Face seemed to be paying more attention to Beach Head. As nerve-wracking as the sergeant major's ordeal had been, the mad will to live that the sergeant major had showed seemed to have won them additional points from the hunters. That, Scarlett could respect. There was less glaring and covert laughter now, though it was clear that Black Box was still only tolerating her shows of authority.

What worried her most of all, though, was that pieces were falling into place. Cobra Commander's advance team had found the alien eggs—that much was certain. And instead of killing them, like any sane human being, the Commander had decided to make some tests . . . sacrificing his own Vipers as hosts, probably near the camp so he could keep an eye on the process. The hosts were shackled in place, attacked by the crab aliens, and planted with eggs. The eggs became the nymphs, and grew into drones. But the drones . . . those drones hadn't obeyed Cobra Commander, had they?

Yes, the Commander was insane. He was not, however, stupid. Some of the corpses she was seeing on these walls were valuable pawns that the Commander wouldn't give up on a whim. So the drones had attacked the camp against his wishes. They had autonomy, then, and if they had a queen, they were obeying her, not the local masked maniac.

Scarlett shared her thoughts with the team as most of them gathered around the medic.

"God, what a clusterfuck," Tunnel Rat observed. "So we're not just gonna have to take down Cobra, but this queen-thing as well? Scarlett, in case you haven't noticed, we're not exactly in fightin' shape here."

"And we're not exactly able to do anything else," Scarlett said quietly. Lifeline was rechecking the bandaging on Snake-Eyes' leg, and his hands trembled just a little bit as the redhead said it. Even the normally-unflappable medic was spooked, and frankly, she didn't blame him. "It's coming down to end game. Cobra may not be able to control these things now, but if they have enough time to work at it or to get samples out, they could find a way.

"Now look." She waved a hand, gesturing to the dim cavern. Even though the light of the flares was beginning to die, they could see the casings of the huge leathery eggs quite clearly. "We're seeing more and more of these. We must be getting closer to the queen, wherever or whatever she is. We have got to end this, or more people are going to die." She lowered her voice. "The good news? I think we've definitely made some friends."

Her eyes flicked up as Beach Head joined the circle. Despite his ordeal, he hadn't been bleeding, and Lifeline had been helping the more critical cases first. Now he squatted down next to the rest of them, his face now a clear mass of bruise-colored stripes.

"Ah think yer right about that, Scarlett," he said, setting down one of his spare duffel bags. It clanked heavily against the floor. "Damnedest fuckin' thing."

"Everything okay, Beach?" Chuckles asked curiously.

"Yeah." The big sergeant major scratched behind his ear, wincing as he encountered one of the swollen bruises. "They just gave me a gawddamn cannon."


	13. War of the Worlds Part One

**Author's Note:** End game, first part. The final sequence got so long that it had to be split into two chapters—second one should be coming in a few more days.

Thank you so much to everyone who's read this mad experiment of mine. Much love to TinySprite, Karama9, CrystalOfEllinon, willwrite4fics, and PhantomEmpress—the group that initially encouraged me when the plotbunny first bit, and contributed all kinds of great ideas.

And thank you also to everyone who took the time to review and let me know what you thought of this weirdness. Believe me, it's appreciated: it's really important to me that I write something people enjoy, and nothing makes my day more than hearing that I managed to do just a bit of that.

**Rating:** T.

**Disclaimer: **G.I. Joe is the property of Hasbro, Inc. The Aliens and Predator franchises are property of 20th Century Fox Entertainment. I derive no profit from the use of these characters and concepts, and have received no compensation. Please accept this work in the spirit with which it is offered—as a work of respect and love, not an attempt to claim ownership or earn money from these intellectual properties.

* * *

**Chapter Thirteen: War of the Worlds, Part One**

The deeper they went, the more the levels narrowed. There were no more gruesome murals or close-fitted mosaic floors; the same crystalline slime, centuries' worth of it, had covered everything and transformed the ancient catacombs into the tunnels of an insect hive.

Occasionally they came upon another corpse, each glued into niches in the walls and falling to pieces from sheer age. Jaye made an indistinct murmuring noise as she paused in front of one such niche and pointed out the gilded Spanish armor of a high-ranking conquistador. Lifeline, however, was more interested in the corpse itself: the body itself had mummified in the dry air of the mountains, but the mummy was now flecked with decay.

"The rot is recent," he said in a low voice, peering at the crumbling corpse in its now-rusted armor. "This area must've been abandoned for a long time. Notice how the slime comes in layers, like tree rings? Every . . . oh . . . eighty years or so, there's a brief period of activity, accompanied by dampness. Then it recedes, and the corpse dries out again."

No one commented on that. It matched up with what little the hunters had made clear, but having concrete evidence that this particular insanity had been going on for centuries did nothing for the Joes' collective mood. Seeing this, Scarlett pulled Lifeline aside and had a quick word with him, and the next time they passed a niche with a body in it the little medic remained quiet.

They just kept moving. It was almost 0100 by Tunnel Rat's watch, and most of the humans hadn't slept very well for the past couple of days, but they knew that if they stopped there would be no way for them to start again. Worse: no matter how exhausted, mentally or physically, they might be (carrying their wounded, worn out even for G.I. Joes by the insanity they'd been facing over the past few hours), sleep was the last thing they wanted. In a world where even an alert Beach Head could be nearly strangled by an egg-laying tentacle crab, letting your guard down enough to sleep was hardly an attractive prospect.

It was beginning to feel like a death march. There was only one way, and that was downward, with only one possible thing at the end. The deeper they went, the older and thicker the layers of slime were, a mute testament to just how long this had been going on. The last remnants of carvings vanished underneath the crystallized sludge, the tunnels grew narrower, the stairs became ramps and the ramps grew ever steeper. Scarlett lost count after the twelfth level.

"How can we still be breathing?" Yutani said at one five-minute halt. Scarlett gave him the sign to cut it out, but he didn't see it; he was too busy staring up at the gleaming roof of the hive. "We haven't passed any airshafts for hours. It makes no sense; we should need oxygen equipment right now. We don't even seem to be in the temple any more."

"I'm no authority on airshafts, but you're right about the temple," Jaye responded. She had borrowed a ka-bar from Chuckles and was scraping away at the layers of solidified slime on the wall. "There's no sign of any human activity here. No fitted stone, no tool marks, not even a cave painting . . . though it's hard to tell under all this. There's nothing characteristic of Mesoamerican architecture, or even architecture, period." She handed the knife back and mopped the sweat off her forehead. "At this point, I'd say the temple was built on top of a natural system of caves. It's a little-known fact that the Incas also mummified a lot of their dead, and the dry air of the natural mountain caves was one of their favorite sites. They may have originally built the temple to take advantage of the caves."

That got an amused snort from Tunnel Rat. "C'mon, guys, it's obvious."

"What the hell d'you mean, 'Rat?" Beach Head grunted. His voice was still hoarse, and he was once again being submitted to a forced examination by Lifeline, which wasn't doing anything for his already frayed temper. "For those of us that didn't spend half our lives with our faces in the dirt-?"

"The breeze," the tunneler pointed out, resting his hand on a crack in the wall. Scarlett followed his example and raised her eyebrows a little as she felt the faint breeze coming from the crack. "If I know my tunneling, and I _do _thankyaverymuch, we're in an epigenic cave." Blank looks. "Surface water goes into the ground, dissolves rock. We started in a valley. Now, by definition, less my teachers were lying to poor impressionable me all those years, ya can't have a valley without mountains. Mountains get snow on top. Snow melts in the spring, runs down the mountain _into _the valley-" 'Rat made a little valley with his hands and them spread them. "Seeps into the ground. Stone under the dirt gets worn away. Do this enough, over a few thousand years, ya get a whole cave network. Judgin' by the breeze, this one goes right through the foothill and opens up on another slope. We're gettin' too much air movement."

"Opens on the-" Scarlett's hands instinctively flew to her radio, though it was as dead as ever. "You mean to tell me, 'Rat, that there's potentially a whole other way for those things to get out of here?"

A babble of voices erupted, and Scarlett gestured sharply, making a hissing noise between her teeth. The Joes fell silent. Hayesworth was still swearing, and the quarter-conscious Faraday was mumbling vaguely under his breath, until Yutani quieted them both with a glare and a shake of his shoulders.

"New plan," Scarlett said flatly. "Instead of heading into the bottom of a pit, we may just be following them to the back door. We can't go in with guns blazing any more." She cast a quick eye over the team. The humans were exhausted, the hunters were unreadable, and every single one of them was injured. She made a quick assessment. "'Rat, about how fair from this air source do you think we are?"

Tunnel Rat put a hand to the crack again and furrowed his brow. "Three miles, maybe. If it's a big one. Hard to judge—a lot depends on how deep we are. I should've stolen Alpine's altimeter."

"We're going to need a scouting party." Scarlett examined the team again. "'Rat, take Storm Shadow, Hayesworth, and . . ." She stopped. The biggest of the hunters was giving her that look again, and it was starting to get on Scarlett's nerves.

She marched across across the corridor and stopped in front of Buckingham, her hands on her hips. The hunter cocked his head, his gaze unreadable behind the heavy-browed silver mask, but Scarlett refused to be intimidated. "I need you to join the scouting party," she said levelly, ignoring the vicious hiss that came from Black Box. "You aren't the leader of your group, but you're an old hand at this, and you're obviously smart. Will you work with us again?"

After a moment's silence, the big hunter dipped his head in an exaggerated nod.

"Do you have a name?" Scarlett said.

_"Do you." _Her own words rang hollow and mechanical from the hunter's computer. Scarlett would never in a million years get used to that eerie sound, but it was a fair question: one more indication that these bizarre creatures were closer to humans than one would think.

"Scarlett," she said finally. Remembering the strange "honor duel" that the backstabbing alien had fought with Snake-Eyes, and the way the others had acted, she added: "It's the name I was given. For-" War? "-the hunt. We've all be named that way."

That felt . . . well, it felt completely ridiculous, frankly. It seemed to be the right tack, though: the hunter ducked its head slightly as it let out a tangled mess of syllables that Scarlett couldn't even begin to pronounce. She frowned, wishing she could delegate this conversation to Lady Jaye. Unfortunately, they were coming down to the wire now, and Scarlett couldn't afford to do anything that might be interpreted as weakness. Including admitting that she had absolutely no hope of wrapping her tongue around that kind of name, let alone yelling it in the middle of a firefight.

"You're all strong," she said, hoping silently that this was the right tactic to take. "If you'll accept it—I will name you for this hunt. Only those among us strong enough to join these hunts earn a name this way."

* * *

_"Bu-kin-am." The eldest of the Blooded considered the syllables uttered by Skarlat, rolling them over between his pedipalps. His hunt leader seemed less furious than the Blooded himself would have guessed; perhaps the sheer gall of the soft meat, naming _them, _had struck him silent. But the Blooded leader had also seen the way the masked ones made war: not even an Honored could have survived the clutch of the hard-meat egg-layer the way the soft-meat _Be ched _had. _

_ Their names fascinated the eldest Blooded. His computer translated them for him with ease: _Chu kels, _it told him, meant "laughter." _Sna kys, _"gaze of the poisonous creature." _Ly flein, _"rescue of dying man." These were names earned by true hunters. For this reason, he decided, he would accept the name they gave him. His computer could not translate it, but perhaps its files were not complete. _

_ Besides, if he learned it was less than a worthy name, he could always take Skarlat's head._

* * *

The scouting party moved out: Tunnel Rat, Storm Shadow and the nervous Hayesworth, trailed by the flickering shadow that was the invisible Buckingham. With no way of proceeding until the group returned, Scarlett called for a temporary rest period. They posted guards, and the rest of them shared out what rations and water they had. Half an hour passed, slow as molasses.

Lifeline looked exhausted, but his hands were as steady as ever and he remained implacable. After checking the bandaging on Snake-Eyes' wounded leg, he aimed straight for Beach Head. Or tried, anyway.

"You may have subdural hemorrhaging," the little medic said warningly, tugging on the sergeant major's arm. "Those bruises are developing much too rapidly. You need to sit, now-"

"That means bleedin' under the skin, yeah?" Beach Head said, twisting his neck a little. The vertebrae cracked, and Lifeline flinched. "Well, it's stayin' in me, at any rate. Ain't got time for it. Go check on Faraday, he looks like he was wakin' up a bit."

"I already checked on him. Not concussed, God only knows how, but definitely unconscious again. Sit _down."_

Beach easily shrugged off the medic, to Lifeline's visible irritation. "Got work to do."

And he did: the minute the halt was called, he set down his pack and began methodically going through his equipment, ripping out spare straps and any kind of strong cord he could find. Yutani and Chuckles soon joined him, all three putting their heads together, and went to work with whatever they could find at hand. Within ten minutes, they had their finished product: a strange tangle of nylon strapping and cord, held together with the kind of fiendish knots that Shipwreck loved to baffle people with.

Beach opened his spare duffel again and produced the strange cannon-thing that the hunters had given him, looping it into the tangle of straps. As he worked, Scarlett realized what he was putting together: a harness. The new construct held the cannon slung by his side, where it could be easily swung into position. Scarlett couldn't help but smile at that: bleeding internally, and his first priority was still making sure he was well-armed. Still grinning a little, she turned to check on the rest of the team.

Chuckles and Yutani seemed to be in good condition, despite the long march. Chuckles, of course, was never one hundred percent open with his emotions, and Yutani might as well have been made of marble. Beach was . . . Beach. Lifeline, thwarted in his attempts to administer care to the aforementioned sergeant major, was once again checking over the prone Faraday's vitals. Lady Jaye was originally on watch, but she soon traded with Yutani, and she joined Scarlett.

"You're doing well," she said quietly, smiling a little. "I knew those acting classes Hawk made me give you guys would pay off sooner or later."

Scarlett gave a bitter chuckle as she checked the string on her crossbow. Her face was drawn, her lips bloodless and tense. "Of course," she said. "It's_ all _due to your training, naturally. However did I manage without you?"

There was a short pause. Then Jaye leaned forward and, keeping her face perfectly neutral, murmured: "I get that you're under a lot of stress, O'Hara, but maybe you should keep the sarcasm to a minimum in front of the killer aliens?"

" . . . dammit. I'm sorry, Jaye." Scarlett mopped her forehead and tightened the bowstring. She glanced up for a moment, and Jaye could see the dark circles under her eyes. "And thanks."

For a moment, Lady Jaye wanted to say something more. The relationship between the two women had gotten off to a rocky start—Jaye was a long-term planner, building intricate traps of intelligence data, while Scarlett much preferred kicking someone so hard that they could taste their own kidneys—but they were friends, of a sort, and the brunette was worried for her. But Black Box and Fang Face were still there . . . and even if they hadn't been, Jaye couldn't know if Scarlett would want her words of comfort.

Fortunately, there was someone else on the team who knew how to make a point without stumbling over words. A dark shadow detached itself from the wall, and Jaye stepped back as the ninja nodded to her.

"I'll be watching the perimeter," she said simply. "Waiting on your orders, sergeant O'Hara."

"Carry on, Lady Jaye," Scarlett responded. "What is it, Snake?"

The ninja settled down in a crouch next to Scarlett. The bandaging around his thigh was now covered with strips torn from a black canvas dump pouch, completely obscuring the patch of white and tan that might have otherwise given him away. Scarlett frowned a little, knowing that there was another reason for the extra layer: if he started bleeding through the bandage, it would be almost impossible to tell.

She opened her mouth to tell him he needed to be more careful, but the words died in her throat. There were still two of the . . . aliens . . . there in the camp, and she had no idea how good their hearing was. Any sign of weakness might break the tentative truce they had managed to create. There was no way of knowing if even sign language was safe, a thought that ranked.

Snake, on the other hand, knew all about communicating without words. He dipped two fingers into his belt pouch and extracted a slim dark object, which he pressed into Scarlett's palm. She looked down to see the dull metal surface of a tapered throwing spike. The only one left.

He placed one hand gently over her nose and mouth, the fingers flared like a grasping claw . . . or a crab. Then, making a point with his fingers as if he were holding the spike, he pressed the tips to a point underneath her jaw. Scarlett felt her pulse thunder in her ears as the touch compressed her carotid artery.

"It won't come to that," she said quietly.

He lowered his hands. The expression was unreadable beneath the mask and visor, but the set of his shoulders told her everything she needed to know. Then, carefully, he raised one hand again and signed two letters. _I F._

"It won't," she repeated. "I'm not going to let that happen." Still, her grip closed on the spike. "Thank you, Snake."

The ninja nodded silently to her and slipped back into the shadows.

Scarlett shook her head and tucked the spike into her own belt. She opened her mouth to call out to Jaye—planning to tell her to round everyone up—but a burst of static cut her off. All along the corridor, heads turned, the hunters' hands flying to their weapons. Scarlett yanked the radio from her belt.

"_Come in, Tango Team," _Tunnel Rat's voice was saying. _"Tango Team, this is scouting party on point, coming to you live from the beautiful back entrance to the cave system."_

"Copy, point," Scarlett responded, keeping her voice level. "What's the sit-rep?"

_"Sit-rep is we need backup, pronto! We've found the perfect spot, but it looks like the whole hive is gettin' ready to move out in the next few hours. Scar, if we don't bottle this place up soon, those UN peacekeepers are gonna be lookin' at a whole heap of slimy trouble."_

"Copy that. Hang tight and await rendezvous. Check in at the top of every ten, and use encrypt Dakota Twelve. Understood?"

_"That's a rog, Scarlett. See ya on the flip side."_

As Scarlett hooked the radio back onto her belt, she felt a weight lift from her shoulders. One way or the other, they were going to finish this now. Her team was dirty, tired, and pissed off, and frankly so was she, but there was energy in the air now.

"Pack up," she said. "We're live in five. Nobody try to be a hero; you see one of those things—of any kind—and you kill it as quick and easy as possible. Safeties off on my mark."

She took a deep breath, considering the group in front of her. Two aliens, two UN troopers (one still unconscious) and five other Joes. In one way or another, they'd all earned their stripes today. Making a decision, Scarlett clenched one fist.

_"Yo Joe!"_

* * *

Slime was dripping from the scaffolding _again, _and Cobra Commander flailed as his foot skidded on a patch of the stuff. For a moment he pinwheeled his arms frantically, trying to regain his balance, before giving in to gravity and losing his footing completely. Only a quick grab by Tomax and Xamot saved him from landing on his backside in the stuff.

"At least _some _of my associates know where their loyalties lie," Cobra Commander grunted as he stabilized. The Crimson Twins exchanged glances, each knowing that they were thinking the same thing: 'loyalty' they could take or leave, but 'protecting one's investment' was much more interesting. And they had quite a bit of money invested in this particular enterprise . . . money they might lose if Cobra Commander slipped once too often and brained himself on a rock.

Completely unaware of the twins' less than reverent thoughts, Cobra Commander strode off, his jackboots clicking against the dry patches of rock. "Mindbender!" he screamed, ignoring the shifting shapes in the darkness on the edges of the cave. "If you're going to be keeping a pet, I insist you clean up after it! I won't have my new equipment ruined because one of your little guinea pigs decided to leak on it!"

* * *

"Holy _shit," _Yutani said. It was pretty much the sentiments of them all.

The tunnel had ended abruptly, opening onto a gigantic shelf of rock. To their left, the ground fell away sharply, leaving the rock shelf as only one of almost a dozen protrusions out onto a cave bigger than anything they had yet seen. Stalagmites and stalactites as big as Beach Head littered the shelf and hung ominously overhead, but the cave itself was mostly clear. Powerful halogen lanterns had been strung everywhere, all connected to a central generator that bore the depressingly familiar logo of MARS Industries.

And at the other end of that cave, built into the stone itself, was something that none of them had ever even imagined.

It was a gigantic scaffold, chipped directly out of the rock and now reinforced with distinctly modern metal girders. Below it, a circular portal had once opened; it was now closed off with more girders and guarded by a dozen Cobra Vipers.

And hanging from the scaffold itself was a thing that even the linguist Jaye didn't have a word for. A tangled mess of glossy black limbs thrashed against the scaffold, straining against the gleaming new chains that had been looped around to reinforce the ones that were clearly centuries old. Its eyeless head was crowned with a spiked black crest easily ten feet long, and its jaws dripped more clear slime as it flailed.

"Whoa, momma," murmured Chuckles. "That has to be the . . . momma?"

"Definitely," Lifeline said. "Look at the distended sac on its underside. That's an egg sac. It must lay the crab creatures, which then go out and find hosts-"

"That's enough, Four-Eyes," grunted Beach Head. "Ah don't see 'Rat or the others, Scarlett; think they're further down?"

Scarlett shook her head. There was only one way down from the rock shelf, a brand-new ladder riveted directly into the rock, and anyone climbing on it would have sacrificed the protection of the forest of stalagmites and shown themselves plainly to the swarming Cobra personnel below. The personnel who were, she realized with a sickening lurch, intermixed with the blind and hissing alien drones. Swallowing the bile rising in her throat, she reached for her radio again. "Scout one, this is Tango Team," she said quietly, pitching her voice as low as possible. No sense in making oneself obvious, even with so many things distracting the people below. "Where are you?"

_"We're at the rendezvous point, like I said. Where the heck are you?"_

"Answer my question first, 'Rat. Where are you? Can you see anything unusual?"

There was a crackle of static on the line. _"I dunno. I'm seeing something really fuckin' scary, I can tell ya that. You sure you just followed the path? What's your six, Red?"_

The sick feeling was replaced by a cold chill, and Scarlett's grip tightened on the radio. "'Rat . . . anything _else_ unusual?"

_"Well, I ain't seein' it, but I'm hearin' somebody who's not making any sense. Where are ya? We gotta rendezvous, pronto-"_

The Joes were exchanging glances, and even Yutani was looking uneasy. Scarlett couldn't see the hunters, but that was no surprise; even if she could have, their expressions were unreadable.

"We're at the bottom of the shaft, 'Rat," she said. "See the big Viper by the north corner of the scaffolding? The one wiping slime off his helmet? That's Snake. These idiots need to up their security."

There was a long moment of silence, and then Tunnel Rat laughed. _"That's good," _he said, the grin on his face obvious even without seeing it. _"Great strategy. Except I talked to that guy five minutes ago. His name is Kilkenny, and he's incredibly stupid, but he does his job and he's loyal. Try again."_

The plastic of the radio casing creaked under Scarlett's grip. Shit. She knew it. She _knew _it.

_"So that leaves us at a bit of an impasse," _the Tunnel Rat voice continued. _"Because if you're lying to me, you know I'm not really your teammate. Which means I'm going to have to resort to good old-fashioned blackmail to get you to surrender yourselves. Look down."_

Still hidden in the shadows thrown by the stalagmites, the Joes peered over the edge of the rock shelf. A small group was gathering in the center of the vast cave: six Vipers, dragging two bound and unconscious men, and one standing apart holding a radio. One of the unconscious men was Tunnel Rat; so was the man holding the radio. The other was wearing white.

"Shoulda recognized the smell a' kangaroo-fucker," Beach Head grunted. The standing Tunnel Rat began to shimmer and change, morphing into a depressingly familiar form with a red cowl.

_"Let's make this simple," _Zartan said. The smugness was audible even over the bad connection. _"We know you're up there. Come down, quickly and quietly, and your friends don't get executed. Commander says you have one minute, but I'm feeling more like forty-five seconds. Starting . . . now."_

There was no time. Even before the last word had died away, Scarlett had dropped the radio like a hot potato. Her troops stared back: waiting, watching, wondering what she would do.

"Chuckles!" she said. The undercover trooper flinched. "Hang back. Even if they know you're here, they won't care as long as they get the rest of us." Brutal, but true: Chuckles was hardly one of the Joes' most notorious heavy hitters. "Storm Shadow is around here somewhere. Find him."

"But what about-" Yutani interrupted. His eyes darted towards the white-clad figure.

"Hayesworth. No way Storm gets captured and a peacekeeper stays free." Equally brutal, and equally true. "The rest of you know what we have to do. Black Box, Fang-"

Nothing more needed to be said. The hunters had vanished, and Scarlett could only hope that they had just camouflaged themselves and not decided to abandon the humans who were suddenly surrendering. (Would they consider it cowardice? Scarlett's shoulder blades itched, as if anticipating a knife between them.)

But if they didn't throw down their arms, Tunnel Rat and Hayesworth would be dead meat for sure. Guaranteed death for some versus possible survival for all? Scarlett hated playing the odds. Either way, though, there was really only one option.

If it had just been Joes down there, she might have risked it. But Hayesworth hadn't signed up for this kind of thing.

_"Time's up," _Zartan interrupted. _"What'll it be?"_

Scarlett took a deep breath. "Don't kill them," she said. "We're coming down."


	14. War of the Worlds Part Two

**Author's Note:** End game, second part. In which Cobra Commander explains, Cobra loyalties are put to the test, revenge is sought and to some extent attained, Mindbender does something really fucking stupid for reasons which are not clear to anyone with a functioning cerebellum, and Scarlett officially comes to the end of her majestically long rope.

This was supposed to be the last part, but aliens and Zartan are surprisingly hard to get to cooperate. But one more part and an epilogue to go, people—we're almost there!

And yes, I know several of you have questions regarding various tidbits of the story: don't worry answers _are _forthcoming, but it's hard to get down to the explaining when characters are in the middle of a knock-down-drag-out bloody brawl. However, some thingummies do get explained here, so I hope that helps.

Oh, speaking of blood: there's a lot of it in this chapter. My autocorrect now believes that every word I type beginning with "bl" must naturally end in "-ood-slicked." If you're squeamish, this is an excellent place to turn back.

And again, I'm sorry for ending on a cliffhangerish note. I'm trying to find the most natural places to break up the narrative, and if I hadn't cut it off here, it would just be too. Much.

**Rating:** T.

**Disclaimer: **G.I. Joe is the property of Hasbro, Inc. The Aliens and Predator franchises are property of 20th Century Fox Entertainment. I derive no profit from the use of these characters and concepts, and have received no compensation. Please accept this work in the spirit with which it is offered—as a work of respect and love, not an attempt to claim ownership or earn money from these intellectual properties.

* * *

**Chapter Fourteen: War of the Worlds, Part Two**

They descended the ladder one at a time, dropping their gear down ahead of them. Cobra troopers surrounded them the minute they stepped off the ladder, roughly searching them for any hidden weapons and getting a few "accidental" whacks in while they handcuffed them. Scarlett just set her jaw and stared straight at Cobra Commander, ignoring the grabbing and the bruises: Zartan was still holding the gun to 'Rat's head, and all bets were off until then.

Each handcuffed soldier was then forced into a kneeling position, their wrists shackled to their ankles behind them. Two Vipers took up their station next to each of them, weapons aimed and safeties off. Cobra Commander had clearly been putting some thought into this.

The only kink in the plan was Yutani, who didn't take kindly to Vipers trying to grab the unconscious Faraday off his back. As he rounded on the nearest Cobra trooper, teeth bared, another one fired a taser square into his chest. Even that didn't stop him: with spasming hands he ripped the wires away and knocked the trooper off his feet. Scarlett instinctively tried to rise, itching to help him out, but the shackles kept her pinioned. She could only watch as a gleaming black form pounced on Yutani, uttering a horrible nails-on-chalkboard screech that ran straight down her spine.

To her grateful surprise, though, the bug _didn't _kill him. It crouched over him, poised with its claws at his throat, but moved not an inch further. Yutani froze, eyes wide.

The momentary silence was broken by a gleeful chuckle. Cobra Commander's fists were clenched, and he thrust one towards the ceiling, almost giggling. "I love it!" he exulted. "I love it! Mindbender really _is _a genius! I've had my doubts lately, but for once, he's actually justified himself! _Perfect!"_

He fumbled at his belt, producing a small remote control, and pressed a few buttons. The alien drone clamped its claws around Yutani's forearms and moved stiffly backwards, dragging the sergeant major and his burden with it. Yutani's face was an inch from its needle teeth. Cobra Commander laughed again, as happy as a child with a new toy, and pressed another button. The alien slammed Yutani into the ground again, knocking the wind out of him.

"Hive mind," he said with an air of great satisfaction. Leaving the unconscious Yutani, the drone skittered off again, vanishing into the crowds of Cobra Vipers and other drones that filled the huge chamber. "A hive mind. An alien queen. And-" he waved towards the huge metal scaffolding "-a carefully-placed Brainwave Scanner. Or a modified one, anyway."

"Ah don't believe this." Beach Head's tone was equal parts anger and disgust. "Y'really think this is gonna end well for ya? Yer tryin' to remote-control alien slobbermonsters with help from a loony dentist!"

"Yeah," Tunnel Rat piped up woozily, raising his head and revealing two ripe black eyes. "I mean, at what point do you wake up and go 'Hey, my life is kinda going bad places real fast'-"

Zartan slammed the butt of his pistol into 'Rat's head, and the tunneler slumped forward again. Beach Head said a word that he would have almost murdered any of his greenshirts for using and tugged on his shackles.

"Beach," Scarlett said sharply. The sergeant major quieted down, glowering murderously. Scarlett couldn't blame him one bit for his behavior—given the chance, she would have broken Cobra Commander's neck herself. But they had to weigh the odds. They _had _to. She bit her lip and leveled a determinedly steady gaze at their enemy.

"But he has a point," she continued levelly. After everything she had seen and done in the last twenty-four hours, that little bit of diplomacy was almost more than she could manage. "I really don't see this ending well for you, Commander." She hated using his self-chosen title, but it was a sop to the man's overbearing ego, and it would only encourage him to gloat more instead of having them executed immediately. More time spent on his gloating would give Storm (and perhaps, Buckingham and company) time to throw a spanner into the works.

"That," Cobra Commander said with evident satisfaction, "is because you never had any imagination, Scarlett. The aliens are only the first part of it. With their DNA, Cobra will be able to create an entire new race—Xeno-Vipers! Acid-blooded insect-troopers, loyal only to me!"

Scarlett had to admit, she was impressed that Cobra Commander knew the Latin word for 'foreigner.' Slightly less impressive was his plan to create yet more genetic monstrosities. "Another Serpentor?" she said, keeping her voice neutral.

Cobra Commander bristled. "Better than Serpentor! That was Mindbender's mistake, and I won't let it happen again."

"Maybe you shouldn't let Mindbender overhear you saying that," Scarlett suggested, nodding to the teeming aliens. Cobra Commander jumped and whirled frantically, looking for the doctor in question, but Mindbender himself was barely visible through the crowd on the other side of the cavern and safely out of earshot. The Commander rounded on Scarlett and glowered accusingly. "Just a suggestion," she continued blithely.

"You shouldn't be so overconfident," Zartan interjected while the Commander recovered his aplomb. "Tunnel Rat and Storm Shadow's lives are in the balance here. I've never seen someone fed to an alien, but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be an experience you'd like them to go through, eh?"

Scarlett stared at the floor, feigning intimidation and willing herself to keep her mouth shut. They really must have a low opinion of the Joes' intelligence; the white-clad man on the floor was clearly wearing an ill-fitting old white Cobra uniform, placed with his back to the Joes and Tunnel Rat in between the two in order to disguise the fact that he was neither Japanese nor dressed appropriately. Why hadn't they had Zartan take Storm Shadow's place, if they were that determined to carry off the imposture? Couldn't they have found another flunky to hold the gun to Tunnel Rat's head?

"Enough, Zartan," Cobra Commander said sharply. The shapeshifter glowered. "I have other, _better _plans for the Joes. Send Zarana to me and go check on the mining crews. We need to finish propping that back passageway soon! Failure will not be tolerated."

There was a flicker of movement in the corner of Scarlett's vision. Still keeping her head down, apparently defeated, she shifted her gaze sideways and caught it. Lady Jaye, shackled on the other side of Chuckles, was tapping one finger against the edge of her other hand. Two long taps, two short taps, another long tap . . . not ASL, but good old-fashioned Morse Code. Scarlett sagged another inch or so, clenching her fists in her own shackles and doing her best to look frustrated, while she mentally translated.

Dash dash dot, pause, dash dot dash dash dash dash, pause . . .

_Z not yay w CC. _

Scarlett flexed her wrists and began to tap back, doing her best to hide it from Cobra Commander with the angle of her body. Dash dash dot dash dash dot dot, pause . . . _Mad re Drdnks?_

The other woman's reply was swift and illuminating. _Does Z kno abt RP, Bzr?_

Did he indeed. Scarlett raised her head, examining Zartan and Cobra Commander with fresh eyes. She remembered the bodies glued to the walls—bodies of people that Zartan ordinarily wouldn't have consigned to a grisly death just for the sake of one more mind-controlled alien monster. And then there had been Buzzer's genuine terror, the way the Dreadnoks had shrieked and fought to defend themselves against the aliens . . . the aliens who had been definitely tearing into them indiscriminately, in a way no mind-controlled Cobra drone ever would have.

Buzzer in the MASH unit: _He didn't tell us nothing, not even that he was using different monsters for the ambush!_

Despite her exhaustion, despite the insanity and the terror and the complete and utter loathing for the men who now held them hostage, Scarlett fought the urge to grin. Oh, this was too perfect. Hoist by his own petard, indeed. No wonder Cobra Commander hadn't ordered Zartan to impersonate Storm: he wanted to keep Zartan believing in his own untouchability within the organization, which was tough to do when you were having a man impersonate an enemy hostage. Flexing her fingers to keep them from cramping, she signed back to Jaye.

_Z neg kno. Tense bc RP et al gone? MyD?_

It was an indication, she noted, of how bizarre their unit was that Jaye had no trouble recognizing the Morse abbreviation for 'mysterious disappearance.' The other woman signed an affirmative and just responded with dot dot, dash dash, dot dot. Or, in English, a question mark. Waiting on orders.

Scarlett took a deep breath and raised her head slightly, assessing the situation. They were surrounded on all sides by Vipers, mind-controlled aliens, and psychotic would-be dictators. Tunnel Rat had a gun to his head. Their restraints were well-locked and difficult to worm one's way out of. Storm Shadow was out there somewhere, but he was just one man . . . and frankly, there was no way of knowing where the hunters were, or if they were even still on the Joes' side. Scarlett might have offended them by daring to give them code names. And to top it all off, Faraday was still out, and Scarlett wouldn't put much money on him being unconscious as opposed to one hundred percent comatose. All in all, the odds were not stacked in their favor.

But . . . choosing personal (and personnel) safety versus letting Cobra Commander go on his merry way with an army of monsters? The hell with that.

Yo Joe.

Zartan had pulled the radio from his belt and had been conferring with Zarana. When he paused for breath, Scarlett jumped into the gap. "While you're at it," she said bitterly, "tell her Road Pig's dead. That ought to make her happy, right? Maybe she won't try to overthrow you this time."

There was a buzz of static from the radio and a squawk of _"What?" _from Zarana. Cobra Commander almost growled under his hood and seized the gun from Zartan before the shapeshifter could respond. Stars erupted in front of her eyes as the stock of the weapon slammed into Scarlett's temple, sending her reeling and toppling her over onto the ground, still shackled. Her vision blurred, and blood dampened her hair as she landed hard on the rough floor of the cave.

"I hate—being—lied to!" Cobra Commander shouted, throwing the gun down. Snake-Eyes tried to headbutt him, but the Commander skipped neatly back out of the ninja's range. "Vipers!" the commander snapped. "She's getting on my nerves. Go find a hole and throw her in it!"

"Wait," Zartan said. He didn't shout, but there was a layer of ice on his tone, and somehow it still carried. "This is interesting."

_"What do you mean, he's dead?" _Zarana was shouting from the radio. _"He can't be dead! He's the most useful flunky I've ev-" _Her voice died in a buzz of static as Zartan turned off the radio.

"Zartan, did you just countermand my order?" Cobra Commander demanded. "Don't even think about-"

He, too, was cut off, this time by Chuckles. "_And _Demolisher," he said, staring Zartan straight in the face. His expression was grim, as if he were unwilling to say what he was saying but couldn't hold back any longer. Good for Chuckles, always knowing when to pick up the gauntlet. "_And _Rat Man. Buzzer's in the MASH unit with a brain injury, Thrasher's comatose, and Zandar is going to be damn noticeable from now on."

A spasm passed over Zartan's face at the mention of his brother's name, but it passed quickly. Instead, he grabbed Chuckles by the front of his shirt and hauled him into the air. "How do I know," he hissed, "that you and Red aren't just lying to save your necks?"

"Try us." This time it was Lady Jaye, and both Zartan and Cobra Commander's attention snapped towards her. Scarlett felt a quiet thrill of pride: that was it, Joes, keep them off balance . . . "We interrogated Buzzer. Commander, your mind-controlled aliens nearly killed him, and he said he didn't have a clue what had gone wrong."

"Silence!" Cobra Commander shouted furiously. "Vipers! Shut them up!"

The ring of guarding Vipers closed in, but Zarana was sprinting towards the group now, and she was bringing several Dreadnoks with her. None of them looked happy. There was the merest rustle of movement as, to Scarlett's right, Snake-Eyes took advantage of the guards' distraction to begin the painful process of dislocating his thumbs in order to slip from the wrist shackles.

"An' he sure as hell wasn't thrilled about it," Beach Head contributed happily. "He was swearin' up a storm at the nurse when our guys went in. Didja know he was a limey? I sure as hell didn't, but Jaye said the Aussie nurse caught 'im out right away."

Another twitch in Zartan's face: he _did _know, but he hadn't thought the Joes did. One more little piece of proof in their favor.

Cobra Commander sounded like he was frothing at the mouth. "This is one of the most ridiculous tricks you've ever tried, Joes!" He gestured, and the Vipers raised their weapons, clicking off the safeties. Now the ring of guards around them looked like a firing squad. But the Dreadnoks were circling too, their own weapons at the ready, and not all of those weapons were aimed at the Joes.

No time to wait for Snake to slip his restraints—Scarlett had to be ready as well. She strained, bending backwards as much as she could without being noticed, and slipped her fingers into the lining of her back pocket. Where, where, where—aha! There it was. A long-haired lady's best friend, the all-purpose bobby pin. She secreted it between two of her fingers and settled back into position, cupping her hand over the lock to the ankle restraints while she worked the pin into it.

"I'd say let them talk," Zartan said, slowly and deliberately putting Chuckles down and crossing his arms. "I seem to recall you telling your pet mad scientist that it was important to use _all _available resources."

"Zartan, you are explicitly disobeying my orders." There was real venom in Cobra Commander's voice. "If you don't stand down and shut up, _now, _my Vipers will have to kill you along with this trash!"

Now the attention was definitely away from the Joes. Scarlett felt, rather than heard, the lock give: the bobby pin snapped, but the shackles on her ankles were loose now. A barely distinct tremor ran through Snake-Eyes' arms, and she knew his hands were free. Now he would be able to slip the picks out of the hidden pocket on his hip . . .

"'This is the plan, Zartan,'" the shapeshifter quoted. His features shimmered, and for a moment, his red hood became a distinctive blue cowl. "'Your Dreadnoks will go up in front of my new experimental monsters. The Joes will be lured into thinking they aren't being challenged. No, it isn't a trap—I don't intend to waste a valuable resource.'" He snorted. "But apparently, you don't consider my Dreadnoks _valuable _any more—not next to your new pets."

"How dare you-"

Snake-Eyes needed to free his feet and pass the picks along the Joes' line. Scarlett knew that they needed to keep attention away from him. "How long did it take you to change the plan?" she said sharply, drawing another hiss from Cobra Commander. "You probably came here for the snake artifacts, right? Maybe hoping to field-test some monsters in a suitably dangerous setting. And then you found _better _monsters."

It was a shot in the dark, but from the way Cobra Commander reacted, it was closer than she'd thought. He aimed another blow at Scarlett's head, but she ducked to the side, "accidentally" toppling over onto the ground again and hiding her freed hands and feet under her body. In the confusion, Snake-Eyes slipped a lockpick to Beach Head.

"Much as I hate to agree with a Joe," Zartan said flatly, "she has a point." He had pulled out his sidearm, and now its barrel was inextricably trained on Cobra Commander. Half of the Vipers moved their weapons to cover the shapeshifter, but the Dreadnoks were muttering amongst themselves, and several of them had the Vipers in their sights.

"Ah hate Mexican standoffs," Beach Head muttered. The lockpicks went from him to Lifeline, who was out of his restraints almost quicker than anyone: thanks to his non-combatant status he had spent a lot of time being captured. He slipped the picks to Chuckles.

Then Cobra Commander put his hand on the remote, and a tense silence dropped over the group. Hands wavered on guns as his finger sat, poised, on one of the buttons.

"Don't," he said. His voice was steely. "You _will _die."

For a moment, there was dead quiet among the small group. Heads were turning all across the vast cave as more and more people became aware of the tense confrontation, and work was slowing to a halt. Zarana's teeth were bared in a silent snarl.

Then the silence was broken by a shriek from Cobra Commander. Something metallic appeared to sprout from the back of his hand—a shuriken, now lodged deep in the tendons of his wrist. His fingers went limp as blood spurted from the wound, and the remote dropped from his grasp and bounced onto the floor of the cave.

Good ol' Storm.

Zartan caught the remote before it even hit the ground. A tremor ran through Snake-Eyes as he prepared to leap, but Scarlett hissed between her teeth, and the ninja froze in place. All eyes—Joe, Cobra, and Dreadnok—were fixed on the shapeshifter, who held the remote in a vicelike grip as he stared down at the bleeding Cobra Commander. The latter was swearing and clutching his wrist, trying to stem the all-too-quick flow of blood. The crimson fluid stained his uniform, turning the blue fabric a lurid purple.

"Now," Zartan said. "Where were we?"

Cobra Commander let out an agonized whimper. "Get me a medic!"

"Tell me the truth."

"I'm bleeding out! _Get me a medic!"_

"Tell. The. Truth."

Loss of blood makes anyone lightheaded, Scarlett knew. She had vivid memories of the faintness, the horrible weak feeling in the limbs, the poor judgment . . . Cobra Commander was shaking now, trying to pry out the shuriken with blood-slicked fingers and no longer able to stand. If an artery had been severed, Scarlett bet he would have been dead already: nicked only, then. Which shadow was Storm hiding in?

"I," the terrorist leader managed. The shuriken clattered to the floor, smeared with bright red. "I was . . . it was the plan! They were part of the plan!"

"They," Zartan said with cold finality, "were _Dreadnoks."_

His fingers contracted. Something snapped. With a squeal of dying electronics and a crunch of plastic, the remote splintered and fell apart. A tangle of sputtering wires landed on the rock floor of the cave.

And the aliens came alive.

They didn't screech this time: they _howled, _sending chills skittering down Scarlett's spine. One reared up on its hind legs, whiplike tail thrashing. Others weren't as theatrical. Before Scarlett could blink twice, a full-grown drone pounced on the nearest Cobra Viper, its claws digging into the horrified man's chest. Even as she reacted instinctively, leaping to her feet and reaching for the weapon on the hip of the nearest Cobra trooper, the victim had been torn in half. Blood sprayed out in a warm rain, dampening her hair and stinging her eyes.

Zartan had bolted. His most trusted Dreadnoks took off after him, taking advantage of the still-shocked crowd to barrel their way through before anyone could stop them. Even as they plunged into the mass of people, though, the bisected Viper hit the ground, and chaos erupted.

A war was one thing. A brawl was another thing entirely. A slaughter was something Scarlett had never expected, but she was forced to guess that it was something like this.

There were no lines of battle, no reinforcements or patches of cover or support of any kind. The bugs attacked like starving dogs, lashing out with claws and teeth and spike-tipped tails. Gunfire broke out as the Vipers and Dreadnoks panicked, each targeting the nearest thrashing black thing. Several of the humans died almost instantly, victims of their comrades' wild firing. The bullets barely penetrated the shells of the aliens, only making them angrier, and when one did strike the soft meat its acid blood sent the humans shrieking and reeling in pain.

Oddly enough, Lifeline was the first of the Joes to get moving. He grabbed a discarded knife and ran full-tilt towards the captives, slicing through the ropes with an efficiency that belied a lot of experience with sharp objects. Tunnel Rat still looked dazed, but of the two, he was in the best condition: Hayesworth didn't seem to be conscious. Lifeline knelt down next to him and began checking his vitals, while 'Rat grabbed a sidearm and pushed his way through the chaos towards the rest of the Joes. Dazed or not, they needed every man they could field.

Humanity had the advantage of numbers, and Scarlett knew that that was not going to last. The Joes were seizing weapons from anything and anyone that they could find, but they didn't have a plan and there was no _time _to think of a plan. The bugs were loose, and if they got out of the cave-

"Joes!" she shouted. They didn't look at her—they couldn't _afford _to look at her, with bullets and blood and claws flying from every direction—but they were close enough to hear. _"The queen!"_

The queen. The queen laid the eggs, the queen controlled the aliens. The queen, still locked in her scaffolding, with Zartan and his best Dreadnoks headed straight for her. And Scarlett was going to bet good money that the shapeshifter wasn't planning to kill her himself.

Something white whizzed over their heads, and Storm Shadow catapulted into the fray. "Catch!" he said, dropping two heavy bags at the Joes' feet. _Their_ weapons: not all of them, but better than stolen ones or none at all. Scarlett snatched up her crossbow and a belt of grenades.

"Storm, clear the way!" she called out. "Beach, watch our backs!"

"Ah gotcha!" the sergeant major yelled back. He was pulling some heavy, canvas-shrouded object out of one of the bags. Storm Shadow whipped a dozen shuriken into the crowd, sending Vipers stumbling and fleeing, and the Joes plunged forward. Scarlett tried to shout for Lifeline, but before the second syllable left her mouth, the little medic waved for them to go on: he had stabilized Hayesworth and now he was focusing on the half-dead Cobra Commander. First do no harm indeed-he knew what he was doing. They should leave a man with him, but with so few of them left, they couldn't afford it. As the roiling crowd hid him from sight, Scarlett could only hope that that wasn't the last they would see of him.

A bug leaped in front of them, teeth bared, and she fired half a dozen rounds into its stomach. As it recoiled, Storm Shadow finished it off with two quick swipes of his sword. Acid already pitted the blade, but one sword wasn't much next to getting to that scaffolding _right now. _A Viper shrieked and toppled forward into her path, his fingers locked onto the slimy face-hugger that had already enveloped his head. Scarlett took care of both of them with one quick bullet. No time, no time, no time, the scaffolding was closer and closer, please God don't let anything stop them now-

There was a strange, metallic whine, right on the edge of Scarlett's hearing, and blue light exploded on the very edge of her vision. She dared a split-second's look back, and saw to her astonishment that a miniature rockslide had buried several thrashing Vipers and an alien in dirt and rubble. It looked like an explosion had gone off, but the person bringing up the rear hadn't been carrying any explosives-

Oh.

Beach Head's face was drawn into an odd grimace as he struggled to control the oversized weapon, but the bright blue glow lit up a face that was nevertheless almost gleeful as the cannon discharged again. What looked like a ball of plasma smashed into a huge drone, sending it flying into the mass of panicking humanity.

"Ah told em!" Beach Head shouted. "An' Ah'm tellin' you!" A Viper tried to leap onto his back, but he slammed one elbow back, catching the unfortunate trooper in the solar plexus and sending him crashing to the ground. _"You don't fuck with no god—damned—Airborne Ranger!"_

Not strictly appropriate battlefield conduct, but Scarlett could live with it. With a jump, she cleared a pile of fresh bodies and stopped just short of slamming into the base of the scaffold.

It only took one glance upwards to see what was happening. Zartan was crouched on the top level of the scaffold, only feet from the thrashing, howling queen, with several veteran Dreadnoks at his back. And he was holding a gun to the head of a very familiar figure: a bald, monocle-wearing figure, who was working frantically at the makeshift console of the machine hooked up to the alien queen.

With a creak of metal, a lock disengaged. Then another. One of the chains snapped, another fell slack. The restraints began to tremble.

Scarlett couldn't believe what she was seeing, but she couldn't afford to stand and gape. If Zartan wanted to get his revenge by causing a mass Cobra slaughter, he'd already done a damn good job. The queen was practically frothing at the mouth as she reeled in her restraints—if she got _loose, _Scarlett wouldn't give five cents for the chances of any human being left in the cave.

The others were on the same wavelength. Before she could say a word, Snake-Eyes and Storm Shadow had left their spots in the the line and charged the scaffolding. Snake-Eyes seized one of the now-loosed chains and swarmed upwards, aiming straight for Zartan, while Storm flicked a kasuri-kama at the upper level of the scaffold. The blade lodged, and the white-clothed ninja leaped, using his momentum to swing upwards and land beside his sword-brother. The rest of the Joes followed by any means possible—most taking the ladders, but Scarlett eeling up the chain after the black-clad commando.

"Beach! Stay!" she shouted as she climbed, and the sergeant major stayed. Much as Scarlett dearly would have loved to have him cram that cannon down the alien queen's throat, she didn't want to even imagine what kind of acid explosion that would create.

Scarlett, Snake-Eyes, Storm Shadow, Tunnel Rat, Chuckles, and Lady Jaye stormed the platform. The Dreadnoks rounded on them, but the Joes were fighting with the strength of desperation and no quarter was given. The bikers were removed by any means necessary. A few died instantly, and Scarlett knew that that would be one more thing to keep her awake at night—but right then, she didn't give a good goddamn. Guilt later. Save human race now.

Zartan rounded on them. The muzzle of his weapon was still pressed to Mindbender's head, and the normally confident mad scientist was wide-eyed, sweat trickling down his bald dome. Zartan's free hand rested on a makeshift console hooked into the tangle of machinery that surrounded the queen, and while Scarlett could never have hoped to decipher it all normally, someone at Cobra had thoughtfully made one button extremely large and ominously red. No-brainer.

"Don't even think about it!" she snapped, bringing her own weapon to bear. The shapeshifter was surrounded now, but none of the Joes could make a move while his hand was on that button.

"Why not?" Zartan said calmly. Scarlett almost missed Cobra Commander: he was always so reliably maniacal in situations like this. "Half the creatures down there were probably made out of my Dreadnoks. Maybe I want what's best for my gang."

"I don't believe that, and I know you don't either," Scarlett said flatly. "Cobra Commander's betrayed you and your people plenty of times before now, remember? One alien rampage isn't going to change that."

"Who said anything about a rampage?" the shapeshifter responded. Still calm: you'd almost think there weren't a dozen weapons aimed at him. He nodded to Zarana, who unclipped a short-range radio from her belt and threw it down at Scarlett's feet. "You're going to use that to call up to the UN camp. Zandar and my other Dreadnoks will be released, unharmed, and escorted to the edge of the perimeter by unarmed peacekeeping troops. When that's been done, Mindbender here will activate the backup shutdown system." He pressed the muzzle of the gun into the scientist's temple. "You _do _have a backup, don't you, you little weasel?" Mindbender gulped and nodded. "Good. If Mindbender tries to activate it before I give the okay, he dies, and I let the queen free. If you try to go back on your word, the queen's free. If you even think about getting your big ape to aim that bazooka of his my way, then the last thing I do in this life will be letting that queen free. _Do you understand?"_

Scarlett was used to dealing with psychotics. Cobra Commander was really only the tip of the iceberg there; the team had spent enough time in Borovia, Sierra Gordo, and Trucal Abysmia to meet quite a who's who of dime-a-dozen dictators. Zartan, however, was playing a different game than the Joes usually saw—especially from someone who was supposed to be a member of Cobra high command. He'd been betrayed before, but the knowledge that Cobra had used _his _people to incubate those monsters had hit him harder than anything Scarlett had ever seen before. Now he was determined to get what he want, and damn the consequences. Definitely not the Joes' area of expertise: prisoner release usually wasn't their bag. And the other side's guns usually weren't twenty feet long, alive, or filled with acid.

Lady Jaye held up one hand, almost as if she were trying to call a halt to a ball game. "If you let her loose, everybody is going to suffer, Zartan. Including your Dreadnoks. She's obviously more intelligent than Cobra Commander understood-" A statement punctuated by a lethal hiss from the queen, who swung her head until her translucent teeth were only a few feet from the Joes. "-and if she gets out, then nobody on this _planet _is safe. Would you rather have your people in our custody, but safe and healthy—or free and likely the first target of this thing?"

Jaye was a better diplomat than any of them, but Zartan didn't seem to moved. "The Vipers will be dead soon," he said. A strangled shriek from one of the Vipers, and a corresponding report from the plasma cannon, underlined the point. "Call the surface, now, or sign your own death warrant."

"Then we have a problem," Scarlett said flatly. Vipers were dying. Aliens were dying, too, but not nearly fast enough. There was no sign of the hunters—had they run off? Died? Scarlett had no idea, and she had no time to think about it. She was the mission leader, and they had an almost-stalemate and this was _not _the time for a dramatic staredown!

And she was just. Fucking. _Sick of this. _That was strictly an unprofessional attitude, but intel agent or not, Scarlett wasn't feeling very professional right then. Tango Team had been jerked around from the very beginning: sent into a situation under false names, saddled with UN peacekeepers in a move that almost certainly had gotten most of the poor underprepared bastards killed, and of course, finding themselves caught in a war between fang-faced, prophylactic-headed aliens from God only knows where who apparently didn't give a shit when the chips were really down. Mix Cobra into that, Scarlett had been having a very, very bad couple of days. Every moment of hesitation meant more people-hers and Cobra's-dying, and now Zartan was playing Dr. Strangelove, Alien Warfare Edition.

So she shot him.

It would not be the finest moment of her career. But it was one that nobody had expected, and right then, that was good enough for her.

Mindbender was to Zartan's right, and the alien queen was to his left. One shot shattered Zartan's left knee, sending him reeling with a pained grunt as blood spattered his already-dark-red trousers. He threw one hand out, trying to slam down on the red button, but Scarlett put two shots into his shoulder and he went stumbling backwards.

"You bitch!" he hissed. His mouth had been open when the shots landed; his own blood was staining his teeth, and his skin shimmered and shifted as his chameleon abilities began to activate. He was trying to blend into the background, trying to get away despite the holes she'd put in him—but Scarlett was seeing red, much more red than even the blood and his god-damned idiotic cowl, and she almost unconsciously shifted her weight to her back leg as she raised the other. The flat of her heavy boot slammed into Zartan's chest with the full force of her exhaustion and frustration and rage on behalf of the dead peacekeepers, and the shapeshifter wavered on the edge of the platform for one heart-stopping moment before tumbling off into the chaos of the bloody battle.

Mindbender, with Zartan no longer menacing him, dived for the panel even as Scarlett returned both feet to the ground. "Bad idea!" he shouted gleefully, hitting keys for all he was worth. He slammed his fist down on another glowing button—green, this time._"My turn!"_

And with a groan of metal, the last of the locks disengaged. The scaffolding trembled as the chains fell away, and an ungodly howl sliced through the air as the alien queen's restraints opened.

The Joes hit the deck, hard, and clung to the scaffold while it rocked and shuddered with the queen's half-triumphant, half-enraged exertions. Scarlett hitched an arm around one of the rungs of the bolted-on ladder and began to reload her sidearm with the other, her teeth gritted as the reverberations rolled through them. Mindbender. Fucking _Mindbender_. He must have had emergency protocols, all right . . . She almost wished she'd shot him too. _(Shoot an unarmed enemy combatant? Check yourself before you wreck yourself, Scarlett.) _Storm Shadow and Lady Jaye were closest to her—the latter eyeing Scarlett as if she wanted to say something important but knew it wasn't the time. Storm Shadow, on the other hand, considered no time like the present and turned his head towards Scarlett even as he unsheathed one of his last swords.

"I have to say!" he shouted, barely audible over the thunderous screeching of the freed queen. "That was very nice! Just what my father used to do when the government inspectors told him he had to send me to school!"

The scaffolding rocked again, and metal shrieked in pain as it was bent and twisted almost beyond endurance. The queen had gotten a loop of chain caught around her neck, and in her thrashing attempts to free herself, the whole structure was being wrenched off its base. The Joes were thrown violently sideways as the platform tilted. Mindbender leaped for one of the swinging chains and rappelled down the opposite side as quickly as he could—damn sensible for a man who typically went around in a cape and scaly codpiece, Scarlett's brain couldn't help noting.

"We have to free her!" Tunnel Rat shouted. The Joes that could spare the attention stared at him as if he was a lunatic. "She's gonna bring this whole thing down if she doesn't get loose, and someone's gonna get crushed!"

"Better idea!" Storm Shadow cut in. "Brother? Let's go for a ride!"

"Don't you da—" Scarlett began. She didn't get to finish the word, as the platform gave a violent shudder and almost bucked the Joes off entirely. With freedom so close, the queen was getting angrier than ever, and the aliens down below were picking up on her rage: in the midst of the battle, black shining heads were turning, and the bugs were beginning to swarm towards the scaffold.

Storm Shadow and Snake-Eyes darted across the heaving platform. The chain looped around the queen's neck was one thick loop, each individual link easily eight inches thick: the kind of thing people used to secure boats and aircraft. Yet the mere fact that it was still holding the queen meant that it had to be made of something special, and any ninja worth his salt knew when a sword wouldn't do the trick. Snake-Eyes grabbed a grenade, popped the pin, and jammed it between two of the links.

Scarlett knew the plan before they even finished executing it, and her heart was in her throat for those few frozen split-seconds as the two of them worked. The plasma cannon went off beneath the platform again, making the queen rear back and almost uprooting the scaffold entirely, but that didn't seem to stop them. Another grenade went into the chain link. It would blow the chain clear off, but nobody could guarantee that it would kill the alien queen—and even if it did, having her facing that direction would kill all the Joes in one spray of acid blood. But if somebody was pulling her in the other direction . . . for Christ's sake, it was the kind of plan Clutch would come up when he'd been drinking that mystery fluid one of the cooks liked to brew in the motor pool.

"Ride 'em, cowboy!" a voice shouted. For fuck's sake, was that _Chuckles? _Scarlett would have punched him if she and the others hadn't been too busy clinging for dear life to the reeling platform. She wanted to scream fifty different things (don't do it, stand down right now soldier or you're up on charges, come back alive, or just _no) _but it was a bit late for that. Snake slammed the last grenade into place and pulled the final pin, Storm Shadow took a running start, and as the first of the explosions snapped the chain like a piece of string, the white-clad ninja leaped off the edge of the platform and landed on the back of the alien queen . . .

Then the world turned upside-down. There was a final tortured wail of metal, the scaffold reeled, and Scarlett's arm wrenched violently as the horizontal became the vertical and the vertical became the ceiling. She could hear the queen's screeching, Storm Shadow shouting something that might have been _yippie-ki-yay! _and yet another explosion, but the sounds were muffled as she was thrown violently from the collapsing scaffold. Something blue exploded in the edges of Scarlett's vision, a metallic hum filled her ears, and for a moment, darkness fell. She had the odd sensation of falling . . . floating . . . flying? Something like it. There was an iron-like grip on the straps of her pack, but the rest of her hung limp.

She landed almost gently, for all that she was being dropped on the dirt floor of the cave. The grip on her pack disengaged, and tiny stones crunched underfoot as someone landed beside her. Someone big.

Her eyes flicked open. A dark shape was looming over her, seven feet tall if it was an inch, its silver mask gleaming brightly despite the blood that had sprayed across it. One clawlike hand clutched a long lance, which hummed slightly with some sort of energy as its owner shifted a little on his huge feet. The clean-scraped skulls on his belt leered down at Scarlett.

"Well," she said, pulling herself into a kneeling position. "You took your sweet time."


	15. War of the Worlds Part Three

**Author's ****Note:** End game, final part.

I hope this and the epilogue (coming soon) will wrap things up in a satisfactory matter. I'm aware that there may be some continuity and flow problems—this story went through so many revisions that there's no way there won't be—but I intend to shape this up in future, so hopefully those will be dealt with. And though this has been a bit torturous, I won't guarantee that I'm saying goodbye to the world of "Corazones y Cazadores" just yet: the characters have grown on me, I'm afraid, and there's one plot thread I did leave hanging loose just in case I wanted to bring them back . . .

Thanks again to everyone who's stayed with me this far, and I'm so, so sorry this took so long to get out. (Stupid real life.) Special thanks go the Twitter gang, TinySprite (for some much-appreciated emergency beta work) and all the wonderful folks who have read and reviewed this unwieldy chunk of madness.

**Rating:** T.

**Disclaimer:**G.I. Joe is the property of Hasbro, Inc. The Aliens and Predator franchises are property of 20th Century Fox Entertainment. I derive no profit from the use of these characters and concepts, and have received no compensation. Please accept this work in the spirit with which it is offered—as a work of respect and love, not an attempt to claim ownership or earn money from these intellectual properties.

* * *

**Chapter Fifteen: War of the Worlds, Part Three**

* * *

_The __Ooman __female's __tone __was __dismissive, __even __angry. __The __hunter __let __out __a __chirrup __of __satisfaction, __muffled __somewhat __behind __his __mask, __as __his __observation __was __confirmed. __This __was __indeed __the __dominant __female __of __the __group, __and __like __all __dominant __females, __she __was __not __willing __to __ignore __the __disobedience __of __males __around __her._

_ The __leader __of __the __Blooded __had __never __believed __that __Oomans __could _have _dominant __females, __and __true, __the __Oomans' __most __recent __behavior __had __done __nothing __to __disprove __that: __what __real __hunter, __as __they __claimed __to __be, __would __walk __weaponless __into __a __trap __because __their __fellow __hunters __had __already __been __captured? __It __showed __a __priority __of __life __over __the __hunt, __which __was __not __the __yautja __way. __They __had __deserved __to __be __abandoned __when __they __did __that, __and __the __Blooded __leader __had __demanded __it __be __done._

_ But when she had struck the shape-changing Ooman, the hunt-leader had changed his mind and reluctantly permitted the eldest Blooded to grab her. The bloodrage of Skarlat had shown her dominance and eagerness to kill, and a yautja worth his trophies respected the power of the dominant female—enough to let the Blooded himself catch her when the scaffold collapsed. A dominant should have the honor of dying in the hunt, not because of a simple fall._

_ "Where were you?" the Ooman demanded, jumping to her feet and reaching for her weapon. There was nothing to reach for; it had been torn from her hands in the explosion. "Never mind, don't answer that," she continued harshly. "There's no time. Are you with us or not?"_

_ The Blooded disliked the language barrier, but then, the slithery-soft Ooman tongue was impossible for his own proud mandibles. He touched his wrist computer and let it translate her words into a real language, then tapped out a quick answer. Her own voice responded in a mechanical tone: "With you."_

* * *

Shana "Scarlett" O'Hara was not a dead woman, and only the dead would have been calm in the face of what she and her people had been through. Her head was ringing, the wound on her face and jaw throbbed, her hands and knees were scraped raw, and she hadn't slept in what felt like a year. Her world was still reeling from almost being crushed in a scaffold collapse, her ears echoed with the creatures' roars and human screams, and now a seven-foot extraterrestrial hunter was pledging himself to help her after disappearing mysteriously and then turning up again in the nick of time. He'd already saved her life once, but he was still an unknown quantity.

They were standing on a ridge of rock at the edge of the cavern. The scaffolding had fallen sideways, strewing its pieces across almost thirty feet of ground and creating makeshift walls that broke up the mayhem of the battle. She could see movement on the wreckage: the rest of her team was still alive. Buckingham's interference might not have been necessary after all . . .

Although given what else was going on, she wasn't sure she could say that. In the center of the cavern, filling the scene like the world's worst floor show, the alien queen was rearing up on her hind legs. A white-clad figure still clung to her neck, and Scarlett could see the glint of a whip chain, wrapped around the creature's throat in a makeshift rein. She couldn't see the rider's expression, but she knew Storm Shadow and she could imagine it: teeth clenched, lips flared in a manic grin, incongruous blue eyes bright with the glee of doing something that nobody else could.

Her team. Where was her team? Automatically, she tuned her ears for the sound of an uzi, and zeroed in on the first of them. There they were: Snake-Eyes and Lady Jaye had crawled free of the debris and clambered halfway up a small outcrop, which they were holding by the skin of their teeth. Near the mid-point of the collapsed scaffold, Beach Head and Chuckles were backed up against a shattered spar of metal with Lifeline behind them, the medic tending frantically to a fallen Viper with a gut wound. Beach Head still had the strange cannon in his hands, but its barrel was beginning to glow as heat seepage took its toll on the weapon. And there was Yutani, still somehow keeping a hold on Faraday, helping Tunnel Rat and a couple of Vipers that had apparently decided species loyalty trumped politics. Scarlett's heart momentarily leaped, and she rapidly swept the scene again, looking for anything else promising. There—and there—and there, too, Vipers moving towards Joes or Joes beckoning to Vipers. Humans were banding together against their common opponent.

But it wasn't enough. The aliens were tough, too tough, and there weren't enough human beings to make up the difference. Her hopes began to sink again as she watched: it was like being Leonidas on the hill, watching her men throw themselves at an endless enemy in a delaying action that would never lead to victory.

Oh, Joes were prepared to die in the course of war. All of them had known the risks when they signed on. But still, being ready to die didn't mean any of them _wanted_them to.

She scanned the cavern again—quickly, desperately, hoping for some kind of out. Wipe out the aliens, but not the humans. Keep those creatures from reaching the surface. Kill the bad guy. Save the world?

Her eyes fixed on the main entrance. Unless Cobra had managed to cut a back passage—possible, but unlikely—that was the only way out.

Wait. No. It _wasn't._

There was the main entrance, the broad one now half-blocked with the heavy mining equipment Cobra Commander's people had used to cut their way in and bring in their construction materials. It was big, and broad, and probably linked up to the temple's undercrofts. And then there was the Joes' entrance: the upper-level tunnel, the one they had struck thanks to 'Rat and which lead out on the rocky outcrop above. It was narrow and claustrophobic, too small to be really useful for troops or equipment, so the Vipers must have been keeping it open as an observation post. That explained why the metal ladder had been there. The wide-runged, rickety ladder, spaced broad and made for gripping with human fingers . . .

Good God. She had it. She _had __it._

"Buckingham!" she said, turning to him. Pieces were falling into place, and she must have looked as fierce as she felt, because the hunter automatically put his hand on his shuriken. (Odd, her brain thought wildly, how many people in her life relied on supposedly antiquated weapons.) "You had that map of this place," she said, fists clenching a little. "You knew what it looked like. You . . . you knew how it would move." Her eyes narrowed. "You _made _it move. That thing that made Storm Shadow seize—it was a sonic signal. A transmitter!"

A mechanical chuckle, one she recognized as a copy of Beach Head's, rolled from the expressionless hunter. "Made it move," he repeated back to her. "Knew."

Oh, Scarlett was going to kick his ass for all that later, alien or no alien. But now, her brain was sparking with the realization that they had a plan, and she had no time to get angry. "We're in bedrock now," she said quickly. "But if we get out—back up into the corridors—can you make them move again?"

The chaos was spreading. The queen reared up on her hind legs and slashed her barbed tail, almost impaling the ninja barely clinging to her back, while the other gloss-black aliens rallied around her and clawed at the white figure. Snake-Eyes caught hold of the lashing tail as it whipped past and swung himself up like an acrobatic jockey, crawling his way up to the creature's bucking flanks and slashing at the aliens as they tried to overwhelm Storm Shadow. The acid had destroyed most of their weapons, leaving the ninjas with their guns and one sword between them. The creatures came on, swarming like ants as they fought to wipe out the two humans hanging onto their queen.

Buckingham nodded his head, just once.

Good enough for her. Making a decision, Scarlett grabbed for Buckingham's shoulder cannon. He swatted her hand aside, hissing, and she snarled back at him. "Fine!" she snapped. "One shot, near the roof, low power. Do it! Now!"

Perhaps her tone—or her bared teeth—had made an impression, because Buckingham did it. He unslung the shoulder canon and fired. A brilliant blue sphere of plasma arced out, crashing into a stalactite cluster near the apex of the roof and sending a thunder of shattered rock raining down into the seething mass of battle. The explosion shook the cavern, and for a moment, Scarlett and Buckingham had the attention of everyone.

"Joes!" Scarlett bellowed. "_We __are __leaving!__" _She doubted they could hear her very clearly, but her sweeping gesture towards the ladder got the message through. The mass surged, and suddenly the brawlers were moving with purpose.

Scarlett had lost her weapons in the fall from the scaffold, but a dead Viper lying nearby had a shotgun and a belt of shells. She snapped up the gun and raced down the slope, Buckingham hard at her heels. He let out a guttural roar, and she joined him a second later, screaming like the red-haired Irish banshee that family legend said the O'Haras were descended from. It felt good.

Like berserkers, they charged across the ridge towards the ladder. Surprise checked the aliens a little—maybe for half a second, but every half-second put more distance between them and her, and that was what she needed. Scarlett skidded to a halt at the base of the ladder and rounded on the roiling mass of battle, shotgun in hand.

"We hold this," she said to Buckingham. "This is the thin red line. _Hold.__"_

Buckingham might not have understood the reference, but he caught the sentiment. The huge hunter let out a triumphant hiss, eyes flaring yellow under the mask, and raised one fist. The air blurred, and two strange shapes came hurtling down from the roof, their edges fizzing as they faded into existence halfway through the fall. Black Box and Fang Face howled as they descended, an eerie sound that made Scarlett's banshee shriek sound like a kitten's meow. They landed with predatorial grace in the middle of the alien swarm.

Now at least Leonidas had something to do. Scarlett was dimly aware that she'd been tested—some kind of hazing, or a trial by fire—and passed, because the hunters were back in the game. She grinned in spite of herself as she ratcheted her shotgun, sending a spray of buckshot into the face of the first alien that came bounding up the slope.

There was a shift in the tide. Blue, and a few spots of camouflage, began to move towards the ladder. A battered and limping Beach Head came bursting through the chaos, the muzzle of the cannon now glowing a bright cherry-red with overheating; his hands were scorched and his armor clawed to shreds, but he still dragged Vipers and Lifeline in his wake. The medic himself was unconscious and supported by Chuckles and Lady Jaye. A little dribble of blood ran from his mouth: he'd been struck in the stomach, hard enough to break ribs. Scarlett forced herself to focus, but her stomach unclenched just a little as Jaye and a Viper helped hand Lifeline up the ladder.

But if the aliens had been holding anything at all back before, they weren't now. They hurled themselves against the humans in a tidal wave of chitin and fangs. The floor was pitted with acidic blood, making the footing almost impossibly dangerous—for humans, not broad-footed, clever-clawed aliens. They were even taking to the walls, clinging to the rough stone and spidering their way across the rock towards the escape ladder. Black Box and Fang Face were working their way back as well, but there were only two of them. Scarlett repeated the soldier's prayer in her head, over and over again as she reloaded: _please, __God, __let __me __get __them __before __they __get __me._

A bellow cut through the bedlam, and Scarlett looked up to see the blind face of the alien queen headed straight towards her. The white-clad ninja still rode her, hauling back on the whipchain, while a broad-shouldered black figure hung onto the long crest of the creature's head—backwards, splayed across the gleaming shell like a Garfield window cling planted in place with knives, his feet hanging only inches from her gnashing teeth. The queen pursued the thing in front of her, driven beyond intelligence and into rabid fury by the rapidly disintegrating blades that Snake-Eyes had thrust through her carapace. Like a donkey following a carrot, she plunged onwards, crushing her own children under her clawed feet as she tried to hunt down the thing clinging to her own head.

Seconds before she slammed into the ladder, Snake-Eyes swung abruptly to the right, slamming another knife into the place where her right eye should have been. She swerved, and her tail swept out for balance, sending the howling mass of aliens scattering. Against all odds, Scarlett's mouth dropped open: they had found a way to _steer __the __queen._

"Snake!" she yelled. "Storm! We're gone!"

Storm Shadow scuttled back down the queen's spine, clinging to the spurs protruding from her shoulders. Snake-Eyes reached out a hand, his brother unsheathed his last katana, and the blade went sailing through the air. Snake caught it. The queen bucked, almost throwing both of them off, and Snake-Eyes hung on by the very tips of his fingers. He crawled his way up the thrashing head, straddling the crest of the massive skull, and raised the sword as if he was about to stake a vampire.

The sword rose. The sword fell. The queen screamed.

Acid flooded out in a gush as the head fell off.

Snake-Eyes dropped the melting sword as he leaped clear of the falling body, but even as he reached out to hit the ground hands-first—a motion he had made a thousand times before—something went wrong. He buckled in midair, his hands clenching reflexively, his gloves . . . smoking?

Scarlett didn't scream, but it was a near thing. The ninja fell like a dropped rag doll. He narrowly missed the bubbling sprays of acid as the queen's body twitched in its final throes, but he landed hard with his scorched, smoking hands clutched to his chest. Storm Shadow leaped after him, his face contorted in fear, and Scarlett knew what was going through Thomas Arashikage's mind: acid blood, acid blood eating through his gloves, a mute ninja with no hands—

One of the Vipers was lying dead near the edge of the crash zone, his neck snapped by a fall from the collapsed scaffold. Storm grabbed Snake by the arm and dragged him over to the corpse. Planting one foot on the body's chest, he slammed down on the heart with the ball of his heel and, seizing a fallen shard of metal, slashed the dead man's throat in one smooth motion. Blood spurted out, still uncongealed, and Storm thrust Snake's hands into the spray.

Blood was just a liquid, hardly as good for washing as water, but it was also slightly basic. The ninja's shoulders bowed as the blood poured over his hands, washing away the acid and partially neutralizing the burning droplets left behind. Her heart in her mouth, Scarlett ratcheted the shotgun again and spent her last shell blowing an alien off the ridge as it tried to creep up on them. Fingers, she could see fingers: red, raw, burned, but there. He would survive. He had to.

"Joes!" she roared. "We're out! Storm! MOVE!"

The remaining Vipers were rattling past her, clambering up the ladder as fast as they could. A few had joined the last stand around it, thrusting their weapons into Scarlett's hands or hurling rocks, grenades, anything they could get their hands on at the howling swarm. There was a handful of outliers, Vipers flailing towards the ladder, but there were too few of them to watch each others' backs. They went down hard under the wave of enraged aliens.

Yutani hit the ladder. Sweat stood out on his face, his chest was heaving, and a shard of broken bone protruded from a snapped arm. Tunnel Rat was with him, guarding his back as the exhausted man struggled to stand up under the weight of the still-unconscious Faraday. "Go," he gasped out. "Sergeant—I'll cover—"

"The hell you will! Up that ladder, soldier!" Scarlett gave him a shove up onto the first rung. "'Rat, keep him moving. Snake!"

And he was there, he was _there,_one arm thrown over Storm's shoulders as the two ninjas staggered up the slope to the ladder. Snake's hands were raw and red, the flesh bubbled, and his face was twisted in pain under his mask. But he never let out a noise, not even the pained grunts she knew he could make, and Buckingham ducked his head slightly as the two ninjas reached the top of the slope.

"Storm-" No more need be said. Storm Shadow needed no encouragement: he hoisted Snake-Eyes onto his back. He would need his hands to use the ladder, though, so Scarlett threw the ninja a couple of packing straps. Storm cinched his brother into place, binding the other man's wrists together in front of his own neck to keep Snake from having to use his hands to hang on. Together, the two men dragged themselves up the ladder. Scarlett thanked whatever deities might be listening and backed up in the same direction.

The ridge was littered with the dead and dying. Alien corpses were slouched in pitted depressions in the rock, their limbs tangled like horrible oversized cockroaches in the throes of poisoned agony. Half the human corpses were melted slurry, reduced to organic slag by the toxic chemicals their killers spewed. The only thing left moving was the things that wanted to kill them.

For a moment, she wanted to hurl everything she had left into the morass. Bring the cavern crashing down, crush them all. But that would kill them too, not to mention collapsing the whole place and maybe even destroying the U.N. encampment on the surface. If Buckingham could come through, that wouldn't be necessary.

They scurried up the ladder with seconds to spare, and Buckingham's cannon blasted it into shards. The aliens howled and leaped, their claws striking sparks on the rock as they tried to crawl up to the overhang, but they had no chance. If they wanted to get the humans, they had to take the other path . . . the path the Cobra people had taken from the depths of the temple.

Scarlett grabbed Buckingham with one hand and Black Box with the other. "This is your moment," she hissed, breathing hard. "The moment of glory. They're all in one place now, probably for the first time ever. The whole horde is moving, and they're in the temple again, the temple you control. You have it—the honor of wiping out a swarm. You can crush them, _now._" She was laying it on thicker than peanut butter and mayonnaise, but Buckingham's eyes gleamed behind the eyepieces of the mask, and even Black Box seemed exhilarated. They, after all, had not come on some kind of sacred hunt this time: they were there to stem the tide of the creatures, any way they could. To wipe them out, all of them.

"None of us can do this," she said. "You can. _Kill __them __all.__"_

It sounded cold. Years later, Scarlett would wonder what kind of a person she was becoming, when she said that in the line of duty and didn't flinch. But those things had murdered enough, and she felt no remorse whatsoever as the aliens activated the little holograms that projected from their wrist displays. A picture of the temple, startlingly bright in the cramped and dark tunnel, sprang into existence. Colored figures appeared, the swarm of aliens leaping into the picture as they moved from the tunnels to the deep undercrofts of the temple itself. Symbols winked into existence around them: it looked like a console, in an alien language. A basic console, likely a backup for whatever main setup was elsewhere, but it would do for the work at hand.

Black Box touched one symbol, then another. There was the distant sound of grinding rock, and both ninjas buckled as Storm Shadow fell to his knees, his face twisted in a familiar grimace.

The rocks ground and shifted. The roof groaned as flecks of stone and sandy dirt rained down, peppering their hair and making one of the Vipers sneeze. Jaye caught Snake-Eyes under the arms as Beach Head grabbed the stumbling Storm Shadow. This time they were prepared: Beach stuck a rolled-up glove between Storm Shadow's teeth as the ninja shuddered. There was a grinding screech and another shudder as the world shifted, the temple groaning while ancient machinery ground into action.

Then the screaming started. Howls echoed down the corridors, rebounding off the stone and accompanied by the cracking and crunching of chitinous shell. The chorus went on and on, like crushing a swarm of ten-foot beetles or cracking a nut the size of a Humvee. The Vipers flinched, the Joes grimaced, and Scarlett stared resolutely at the ceiling with her jaw set. She could imagine it all: the exoskeletons crunching and the snapping as the walls closed.

Two-thirds of the swarm had vanished off the map. The third kept moving, shattering into several pieces as the aliens split apart and searched for a way out. Fang Face hissed something, Black Box clicked in unmistakeable triumph as he manipulated the hologram, and the walls moved again.

Snapping. Cracking. Popping, Hell's own cereal bowl. Distant shrieks as the walls did their work. And despite the horror and exhaustion, a profound sense of personal satisfaction.

The last of the lights vanished. Buckingham touched the hologrammatic console, and the view zoomed out, scanning for more signs of life.

Scarlett's gut clenched. There was a cluster of red, small and unmoving, a pinprick on the diagram—and it was only a few levels from the surface. Tunnel Rat cursed in Chinese, and Scarlett's hand leaped to her one remaining knife. "How did they . . ." she began, holding the weapon for comfort.

Buckingham raised a hand and then, one finger extended, wagged it back and forth. _Nu-uh-uh_, the gesture said, so human that he had to have picked it up from them. He touched the console again, and it zoomed in. Few figures. Small. Humanoid. Three of them.

One of them ducked its head, touching a small object to a cylinder held between its teeth. A spark flared, a tiny heat signature appearing on the hologram. A lighter. A cigarette lighter. Three humans, near the surface, trapped and passing the time with a smoke . . .

. . . and Scarlett thanked the deities again.

"They're not dead," she said. The three lost lambs. Velasquez, Hartman, and Carlisle, alive and probably bored out of their skulls. Buckingham made a bubbling hiss, and Scarlett looked up at him. If she didn't know better, she'd say he was surprised. "Not worthy prey for you, I'm guessing," she said quietly.

The hunter tapped several buttons on his wrist computer, and another jumble of recorded voices came out. "_Not _**dead **by _**monsters.**_"

"They would have been, if it wasn't for us running into each other and making a heck of a distraction," Jaye put in. "The foot soldiers must have been aimed at the most dangerous targets."

Scarlett eyed Buckingham, who looked as immovable and unreadable as ever. That discussion wasn't over, she knew; no matter how much she appreciated the hunters' help, it was little details like leaving several of her men out for alien-bait that brought home how far apart they still were. She had no idea if they were all still on the same side—though Beach's cannon, and her own strange rescue by Buckingham, had to count for something.

What would Col. Folkes say when confronted with aliens? Hell, what would General Hawk say?

Well, fuck. They'd burn that bridge when they came to it.

She took a deep breath. "We'll have to leave Carlisle and the others for now," she said as she wiped sweat-dampened hair out of her eyes. She was afraid and angry and exhausted and exhilarated all at once, feeling the slightest poke of affection towards the hunters despite their rocky relationship and the aforementioned bait issue. "We've got wounded and our medic's one of them. Vipers-" Several of the Vipers flinched again "-cooperate, and we'll all get out alive. Beach, carry Storm until he unseizes. Rat, Chuckles, keep an eye on our Cobra contingent. You, you, and you, give us a hand with the medic and sergeant major Yutani. Keep it together, everyone. Snake-"

The ninja nodded. He was soaked with blood, his hands were useless, and he could barely walk, but she knew him: if he could breathe, he wouldn't show weakness in front of Cobra. "Beach, up front with Storm," she said. "He'll want to stab things when he wakes up. Snakes, I need you at the back with me." She smiled tiredly at the group. "Let's go home, everyone."


	16. Dogtags and Vicodin Poker

**Author's ****Note:** In which Hawk is diplomatic, we see yautja politics in action, Beach Head makes a sacrifice, and there are minor acts of sabotage and food-stealing.

. . . okay, so I lied. _This_is the last chapter; it was going to be just the epilogue, but it got a little out of hand. I hope it satisfies.

The "crazy greenshirt" is, of course, the lovely Karama9's Thompson, conspiracy theorist extraordinaire. Go read "The Greenshirts and the Werewolf" for more of his exploits—go on, do it, you know you want to.

**Rating:** T.

**Disclaimer: **G.I. Joe is the property of Hasbro, Inc. The Aliens and Predator franchises are property of 20th Century Fox Entertainment. I derive no profit from the use of these characters and concepts, and have received no compensation. Please accept this work in the spirit with which it is offered—as a work of respect and love, not an attempt to claim ownership or earn money from these intellectual properties.

* * *

**Chapter Sixteen: Dogtags and Vicodin Poker**

The sun was rising as, for the second time, they emerged from the depths of the earth. Beach Head cast a long shadow when he stepped out into the sunlight, the coral and orange light of the early morning making him flinch and shade his eyes after the dimness of the caverns. The rest of the ragged party blinked and squinted as they dragged themselves up the final set of stairs and out into the open air.

Three UN men had been stationed at the entrance to the temple, and they yelped and jumped back as Beach Head made his appearance with Storm Shadow right behind him. All three of the men were armed, but nothing they had was even half as big as the heat-warped cannon that Beach had propped on his shoulder, and they pointed their guns nervously at him as if unable to decide whether he was an enemy or not.

"Straighten up!" Beach Head barked, unslinging the cannon. "You're a gawddamn disgrace. Is that how you guard a damn open door? Give me fifty, all of you!"

"Better make that fifty and a medic," Lady Jaye said briskly, pushing past Beach Head. "We've got wounded. You—" She glanced at name patches "Corporal Higgins—go get Colonel Folkes, understand? Rouse the camp if you have to. Sgt. Scarlett will need to debrief him." She eyed the other two as well, who were frozen in the act of going down for pushups. "You two, go get every corpsman you can rustle up. Go on, what're you waiting for? Move!"

Jaye might not have been as terrifying as Beach Head, but she was no slouch either, and the UN troopers almost dropped their weapons in their haste to obey. They skittered off, shaping extremely badly in the process.

Scarlett and Snake-Eyes were the last to emerge from the low tunnel. Snake-Eyes was breathing shallowly as he leaned on Scarlett, the torn remains of his gear damp with sweat and blood, but as they drew close to the door he straightened up and tried to take his weight off of her. He stumbled, and she pulled herself close to him, resting her head in the crook of his shoulder and wrapping one arm around his waist. "Just go with it," she murmured. Realizing what she was doing, he nodded: now it looked as if _she _was leaning on _him. _She had the eerie feeling that the silent hunters behind her knew what she was up to, but Scarlett ignored them: if they had a problem with it, they could take it up with her _after _everyone was safe.

Three of the twelve surviving Vipers made a break for it as soon as they were out in the fresh air. Beach Head collared one, literally slapping him back down into the dirt with one hand, while the other two flailed awkwardly across the uneven ground towards the camp. Their escape was curtailed by the alarmed UN men and medics running the other way, and the two escapees were cuffed by unsympathetic MPs while loudly protesting their innocence.

"Anyone else got any bright ideas?" Tunnel Rat said bemusedly as he helped Yutani sit down on the packed earth. Several of the Vipers shook their heads. After what they'd all been through, there seemed to be a mute agreement that federal prison was looking very inviting right then.

The medics were arriving at a dead run. Jaws dropped as they saw the remnants of the team arrayed in front of them: Yutani barely conscious, Faraday comatose, Lifeline passed out with broken ribs, Scarlett with her fresh head wound, Storm Shadow scored all over with claw marks, and Snake-Eyes . . . The first corpsman tripped over his own feet when he saw Snake-Eyes, and he didn't even have his mask off.

"Stretchers!" someone yelled. "We need stretchers over here! We need _everything, _god dammit!"

A thought struck Scarlett. "What about the-" She began, glancing around for Buckingham and his allies. Those three hadn't escaped injury either, not by a long shot, and though she didn't know if human doctors could do anything for them, it might be worth a try . . . But they were gone, leaving behind three oddly wavering patches like heat distortion in the air, and she stopped short. Evidently Buckingham, Black Box and Fang Face were making their own plans.

Colonel Folkes came puffing up the slope towards them. He didn't look happy: there were dark circles under his eyes, and his uniform was rumpled. His eyes widened when he saw them, and he skidded to a halt, almost crashing into one of the medics bent over Faraday.

"Sergeant!" he shouted. "What the hell have your people been doing? Mysterious earthquakes, screaming, one emergency flare and then complete radio silence! Where the hell's Mackie? Stokes? Carlisle? Hayesworth?"

"Dead, dead, trapped, and dead," Scarlett managed to say, wincing as a medic dabbed antiseptic onto her new scalp wound. Snake-Eyes had soundlessly permitted himself to be folded onto one of the stretchers, and a white-faced doctor was cutting away the scraps of his burned gloves. "Cobra Commander might be dead. Zartan is definitely dead. These twelve Vipers are the only Cobra survivors; they helped us get out, so I'm formally requesting a degree of clemency in their handling-"

"Sergeant, that's not even the _beginning _of an explanation," Folkes said harshly. "Half of the United Nations has been up my ass and around the corner over this! I had to contact your superior, and when he gets here, I'm going to demand severe disciplinary action for all of you. Now tell me what killed my men, or-"

"Colonel," a voice said. "That won't be necessary."

A drab figure emerged from the milling crowd of UN men. He wore American Army BDUs, old but well-cared-for, and a battered leather bomber jacket with no rank insignia. Two others followed him: a tall man with a wide-brimmed cavalry hat and a thick mustache, and a slender Japanese woman in red. Despite the pain and exhaustion, a slight smile edged its way across Scarlett's face. Talk about the nick of time . . .

"Stand down," General Hawk said to Folkes, who frowned as Jinx and Wild Bill shouldered their way past. "General Clayton Abernathy. These are my men, and from the looks of things, they've been through hell. Sergeant-" to Scarlett "-how urgent is this debriefing? Are we in immediate danger?"

She shook her head. "No, sir. But there's three men trapped down there, and they're probably getting pretty fed up by now."

"Map?" Jinx handed Hawk the partial map of the temple. "Thank you. Where are they?"

"In the upper levels, about . . . here." Scarlett tapped the paper. "The map won't be much good, the corridors have all moved, but they should be in that general area. If Colonel Folkes saw a flare, then we should be able to use that airshaft to get to them . . ."

"And what about the others?" Hawk's face was grim. "Bodies?"

"Plenty of bodies down there, sir, but I don't know if we'll be able to get to them." She indicated the places on the map as best she could.

"We'll try anyway. Don't leave a man behind." Hawk rolled up the map. "That concludes our initial debriefing. Sergeant Scarlett, you and the men under your command are hereby formally ordered to get yourselves to the field hospital and, upon arrival, commence healing until such time as told to stop. Is that clear?"

"Yes sir!" Scarlett said, throwing off a crisp salute. Folkes' mouth opened and closed, but no words came out. Scarlett sympathized with his confusion, but the welfare of her team came first, and hanging around talking wouldn't put blood back in anyone's body.

But wait, there was one more thing to do . . .

Turning, she faced the temple and put her hands on her hips. The wavering patch of light was still there, almost undetectable with the early morning mist that still clung to the ground. "I hope there won't be any trouble," she said, staring straight at the camouflaged hunters. "I'm sure any great fighter who survived that battle would understand that there was no sport in hunting the men and women here. And he might want to stay, long enough to receive the respect due him by the leader of those he has fought beside." The medic gave her a puzzled look, but Scarlett just shook her head and turned away again with a small smile. Hopefully, that would do it.

She couldn't be sure, but she thought she heard the bubbling hiss of a laugh.

* * *

Hours had passed by the time Scarlett could finally breathe again. It seemed that the world had become an unending, confusing shuffle of medics and nurses, all of them wielding sharp pointy things and terribly interested in getting samples of her blood. She wasn't allowed to see Snake-Eyes, Yutani, or Lifeline: they were all in surgery, and Beach Head had already been threatened with forcible sedation and court-martial if he kept on hanging around outside the operating zone and glaring at everybody. And everywhere Scarlett was taken, a patch of wavering light followed her. If any of the doctors and corpsmen saw it, they shrugged it off. Trick of the eyes, common in stressful situations after all . . .

She thought she might have actually slept at one point; it was difficult to tell. But when she opened her eyes and focused, really focused, the light outside the covered windows had faded away. She was lying on a cot in a curtained-off room, not in the field hospital proper but someplace close to it. Somebody had injected something that made her scalp and half her face blissfully numb, though it also made her tongue thick and clumsy. The light distortion in the corner was gone.

The curtain pulled back. For a moment, Scarlett tensed, expecting the clawed hand and blank mask of Buckingham—but it was only General Hawk, still in his battered BDUs.

"How're you doing, sergeant?" he said. Scarlett sat up and tried to salute, but Hawk waved her down.

"I'm fine," she said, slurring the words a little thanks to the anesthetic. "Never mind me. How's Snake-Eyes?"

"Out of surgery," Hawk replied. Scarlett slumped a little in relief, and Hawk grinned a bit. "There's severe blood loss and surface chemical burns, but you know burn treatments have advanced a lot in the last few years. As for blood loss, well, Snake-Eyes has probably gone through more blood than Dracula by now. He's not out of the woods yet, but the prognosis is good."

"And the others?"

"All alive. When I looked in on Lifeline, Tunnel Rat, Outback, and Lady Jaye were playing poker with him; last I heard, Lifeline was trying to rule that people couldn't use their medications as part of the pot." Yes, Hawk was definitely smiling. He'd seen it all, and Tunnel Rat anteing with Vicodin was hardly a novel occurrence. "Now," he continued. "Do you feel up to telling me what happened down there?"

Scarlett glanced around. They were alone in the small room as far as she could tell, but she had no idea what kind of security setup was on-base. Hawk shook his head. "Don't worry," he said, pointing to a deactivated camera, "as a senior officer of the United States military, I leaned on Folkes a little to give us some privacy. So . . .?"

She nodded and ran a hand through her hair, gathering her thoughts. "Well, sir," she began slowly, trying to speak clearly through the numbness, "we arrived as scheduled in our undercover identities and reported to the Colonel . . ."

Time passed. Outside, the shift on the fence changed. A rabbit, not wise to the fate of its predecessor, ducked under the wire near block D and promptly exited this vale of tears courtesy of an Arashikage arrow. (The meal that evening had been reconstituted country-fried steak, not acceptable to an exhausted and ticked-off ninja.)

" . . . and the rest you know," Scarlett said. She paused to take a sip of water from the glass on the bedside table before continuing. "I think I can say without any exaggeration that it was the oddest couple of days of my career, sir."

Hawk _didn't _immediately send her up for psychiatric evaluation, which spoke to that seen-it-all thing. But while he wasn't skeptical, his brow was furrowed: he was definitely taking a moment to process it all.

"Well," he said finally, "I'd have to agree. I suppose if we had combination clones of ancient dictators, psychotic robots, brainwashing machines, and Dr. Mindbender, aliens were inevitable." He shook his head. "This is going to cause some problems upstairs, though. They hate things that rock the boat. Folkes' people are already being told to keep their mouths shut by the men in black; don't be surprised if none of it ever goes beyond this camp."

"I was pretty much expecting that, sir," Scarlett admitted. "But there's still all those corpses underground . . . alien architecture . . . not to mention the hunters in camp. I had to distract them with that accolades stuff so they had something to focus on besides possibly killing someone." She coughed. "And so they would stick around long enough to show that we weren't crazy, sir."

"Them I'm not too worried about," Hawk said dryly. "I've always been better at talking to soldiers than politicians. But they can't stay for too long; if the Jugglers' men run into your predatorial friends, it won't be pretty whichever way it goes. It would probably be best if they were kept out of this."

Scarlett took another sip of water. "You mean we're going to hide evidence, sir. Lie to the government."

Her tone wasn't condemnatory—far from it. She knew Hawk had stretched the truth to keep the Joes out of hot water more than once, and that there were times when it had been needed. Like her and Snake-Eyes' little jaunt into a minefield and subsequent tenure in a Borovian circus: it had been bizarre, but necessary to complete the mission. Still, some part of her was never going to be comfortable with it—the same part of her that had been repulsed at "Kill them all." It was a good thing that part still had a voice, she thought. Everyone needs a conscience.

But covering up something that big . . . hiding the existence of _aliens_? The mind boggled. It was like something that conspiracy-obsessed greenshirt, the one who'd thought Snake was a werewolf, would come up with.

"Maybe," Hawk said evasively. He reached up and calmly yanked a few wires out of the security camera, just in case. "But if the investigating committee doesn't specifically ask you about hunters from beyond the stars, you shouldn't feel obligated to mention them. Besides, if I know the Jugglers, they'll be so busy hushing up one alien species that they won't stop to worry about two."

"Yessir," Scarlett said, nodding. And just like that, it was decided. The cockroach aliens would be the first extraterrestrial species to go into the government vaults. The hunters—more intelligent, and possibly even more dangerous—would disappear, and no Juggler would ever get their hands on one.

Legally speaking, as a soldier of the United States Army, Scarlett was in serious violation. Logically, she was too: these were not exactly normal soldiers she was dealing with. But even if the rest of their species was murderous, insane, or reproduced some way even creepier than the eggs-in-the-chest business, those three had been the main reason her team came back out of the temple alive. They didn't deserve to get Area 51'd for that, and she would hate to see the bloodbath if anyone tried.

"Accolades," Hawk said, rubbing his chin. "Well, they certainly deserve recognition. I have a few ideas about that. Where do you think they are now?"

"One of them was here not long ago," Scarlett said, glancing around. "Buckingham, I think. He seems to be the most social of them. But if they're not here . . . I couldn't tell you, sir. We didn't exactly trade phone numbers."

"You called them hunters," Hawk said. "I think I have an idea."

Moving silently, the general and the sergeant snuck out of the room. The UN encampment was as busy as ever, even at night, but there was an odd feeling in the air: a tension, a graveyard stillness that told Scarlett there was still fear lingering. The rumor mill was in full swing again, and though only a few people had seen Tango Team emerge from the earth, the whole valley had felt the tremors when the temple shifted and heard the distant screams. People were nervous.

But somebody had built a campfire on the very edge of the valley, outside the secured line. Someone was singing, very off-key, a version of 'Camptown Races' that wouldn't have sounded out of place in the Gold Rush era (although the obscenities were distinctly modern). Scarlett could smell meat—rabbit, and something bigger.

She counted eight figures, six human and two not so much. As they drew closer, Scarlett began to pick them out: Wild Bill, Tunnel Rat, Lady Jaye (evidently the poker game was over), Beach Head, Storm Shadow, Jinx, Fang Face, and Buckingham. Storm was carving a crude wooden stake for a second rabbit while its compatriot roasted on the fire; Fang Face, eschewing such bourgeois conventions, was hand-dismembering what must have been either a wooly T-Rex or a hyperthyroidal mountain goat. Jinx was watching his display dispassionately in what seemed to be a mutual game of "I have a stronger stomach than you." Buckingham was carving strips off the first rabbit with one clawlike nail. The atmosphere was still but oddly unrestrained: most of them had saved each others' lives multiple times over the past thirty-six hours, and now they wanted meat. QED, end of story.

Storm heard them approaching, and he bounced to his feet and saluted. The other humans followed suit a second later. The hunters had their claws on their weapons, but when they saw who was approaching, they retreated from that position an inch or so. Whether it was a reaction to her presence, or whether they'd decided General Hawk wasn't a threat, Scarlett didn't know.

Then, after a moment, Buckingham ripped a strip off the roasting rabbit and held it out to Scarlett. Not to Hawk, to Scarlett only.

Hawk didn't blink. Scarlett considered for a moment and then, shouldering her way past the group, cut her own piece of meat. Buckingham ducked his head slightly and tossed the first piece into the fire, where it hissed and spat.

"Get your own," Storm grunted. Scarlett ignored him, and most of the group around the fire got the message. It was all posturing, but it did the trick. She stepped aside, letting Hawk through as well, trying to communicate deference and let her earned reputation settle on him—not as easy a proposition as staring down Buckingham. Hawk sensed what she was trying to do, and he stepped into the gap.

"How're ya doing?" Wild Bill said, spitting into the campfire. "Any more news on the wounded?"

She relayed the information Hawk had given her as they sat down on the sandbags that served as benches. There were solemn nods as she mentioned the surgeries, and relieved grins and jokes as they heard who was out of the woods. Scarlett tried to defer to Hawk, show Buckingham and Fang Face that he was the leader of the humans, but he stopped her every time she attempted it: he seemed content to sit on his sandbag and watch them, his expression mild, his posture nonthreatening. Storm Shadow finished gutting the second rabbit and speared it on its spit, grumbling to himself about food snatchers as he pulled the first one off the fire. Lady Jaye attempted to imitate one of Fang Face's guttural hisses, getting a snarl of surprise from the hunter and a laugh from Jinx. Fang Face definitely resented that.

Hawk waited until there was a natural lull in the conversation before making his move. "Jaye," he said, "let me see your tags."

Jaye, her surprise carefully masked, obeyed instantly: canny as she was, she clearly knew that Hawk must have a reason for asking. "Yes sir," she said, pulling her tags out from underneath her collar. They were battered, and now a little bent; they'd clearly been through several campaigns with her. Hawk held out one hand, and Jaye unhitched the metal chain and put it into his palm.

"You'll need new ones," Hawk said, examining the tags. "These are old, and they look it. You know how some people hate equipment that looks like it's been used." There was a low rumble of amusement from the Joes, who shared glances and muttered comments about what they thought of units that were ready for inspection but not combat.

"Scarlett?" the general added, handing Jaye's tags back. Scarlett quickly pulled hers off. She had some trouble threading them along the chain; a droplet of acid had melted one of the tags, warping the metal.

"You should keep these," Hawk said to Scarlett, holding it up against the firelight and examining the melted patch. "Call it a trophy."

Jaye had definitely picked up on what Hawk was aiming at. She had kept her own tags in her hands and was turning them over, pouring the chain from hand to hand and making it shimmer in the flickering light. When Tunnel Rat tried to nip it out of her hands, she swatted him away, making Fang Face huff with his odd guttural laugh.

Hawk handed Scarlett's back, too. "Now me," he said, pulling his own set of tags out and tapping one dent in the metal, "I'm partial to the weathered look. It shows where I've been and what I've done." he dropped the chain, leaving it gleaming against his shirt front. "Jaye? Sergeant major?"

"Sir?" Beach Head said, already reaching for his own tags. Hawk waved him off.

"Come with me, you two. I have a job for you."

Hawk stood, and Beach Head and Jaye stood with him, temporarily casting long shadows over the little campsite. The general surveyed the scene, apparently unfazed by the bizarreness of it all, and then nodded to Buckingham and Fang Face for the first time that night.

"You and your leader helped my soldiers," he said. "Don't think we'll forget that. Meet us tomorrow at dawn, on the north side of the valley outside the fence. As for the rest of you—get some sleep," he added, transitioning seamlessly from addressing alien crab-monsters to his own men. "Scarlett, Jinx, Wild Bill, keep them company."

"Yessir," Scarlett said, saluting. "Good night, sir."

"Good night, sergeant."

* * *

It was the longest, strangest watch in the history of Scarlett's life. The other Joes finished their food and drifted away, leaving Bill and the two women facing the hunters across the fire. Above them, the summer constellations slowly turned in the vault of the sky. Wild Bill and Jinx played cards; Scarlett whittled a stick of firewood into a crude flute, just like her father had taught her. The hunters tended to their weapons, lovingly buffing out any imperfections in a manner familiar to any loved one of a ninja. The bones of the rabbits and the goat burned black in the embers of the fire, and Scarlett picked one out, broke it in half, and sucked out the marrow: another learned trick, this one courtesy of the man now recovering in the closed rooms of the field hospital.

As dawn crept up over the eastern horizon, a pale glow behind the mountains and half-masked by the morning mist, she stood, stretched, and brushed ash off her pant legs. "Shall we?" she said to the two hunters.

"_We __shall,__" _Buckingham responded, his voice as ever an electronic parody of her own. She didn't even notice he had made way for her until they were halfway across the stony valley and she realized she was leading the little parade.

Yes, she would definitely never understand them.

True to his word, Hawk was waiting beyond the northern edge of camp. Beach Head was standing with him, looking a little tired; clearly, the big sergeant major hadn't gotten any sleep. He was carrying something big under his arm, wrapped in a canvas haversack, and Hawk had a hand-sized bundle.

As the small party stopped, the morning mist shimmered. Light bent around it, a patch of air wavered, and Black Box stepped into existence. Buckingham was still the tallest of the hunters, but at that moment, there was no mistaking who was the leader: his armor gleamed, his masked face impossible to read, and fresh trophies dangled from his belt. One of the trophies was unmistakably the clawed hand of an alien; another looked like a shard of a Cobra helmet. Hawk never twitched, but met the masked gaze of Black Box straight on.

The person to break the silence was, surprisingly, Beach Head. He lowered his bundle and opened it, revealing the battered shoulder cannon the hunters had given him. Its heat-warped barrel had been crudely and recently repaired.

"Ah appreciate the loan," he said, hefting the weapon and holding it out to Buckingham. "But Ah'm just a grunt, and it's not the kind of gun Ah can use. Tried to fix it up for you . . . put it through some hell the other day, Ah think."

There was a moment of frozen silence as the two species regarded each other warily. Scarlett bit her tongue. She knew why Beach was doing it: if they were going to be discreet, any alien technology from the hunters had to be destroyed or disappeared, and an accredited armorer like Beach wouldn't dream of destroying such a fine piece of weaponry. Still, the hunters might see it as a rejection of a gift and take offense, and then things would get awkward . . .

But the moment passed, and the world breathed again. Buckingham accepted the shoulder cannon with uncommon grace, nodding his huge head as if Beach Head had merely been returning a book he'd borrowed.

Scarlett hadn't known it was Buckingham who gave the cannon to Beach in the first place. Somehow, though, she wasn't surprised.

Then General Hawk unwrapped the small parcel in his hands. The early morning light gleamed weakly off coiled metal, and Scarlett raised her eyebrows. Ahhh, so _that_was what that little show last night had been about.

There in the general's hands were dog tags—three sets of them, clearly made quick and dirty on a machine press rather than being proper government-issue. One tag in each set had crude hieroglyphs carved into them, following Lady Jaye's dictation and cut by a sergeant major who had a steady hand with a diamond-tipped drill. It was easy to guess that the hieroglyphs told a version of the story they had found in the temple—doubtless in a very ungrammatical fashion, though the hunters' looks of surprise seemed to indicate that they were impressed the Joes had even managed to communicate in this fashion. The other tag in the set had their nicknames stamped into them. One set, Black Box's, had one of General Hawk's tags looped onto the chain along with the standard two.

It was a bizarre form of respect, Scarlett supposed. Though the hunters' presence on Earth had been the catalyst for the whole disturbing mess in the first place, these three had not been personally responsible for what had happened—and they had all fought together, back to back, which engendered a form of comradeship. In a way, it had been like working with the Oktober Guard. They would never be friends, but they had done all right by each other. That should be acknowledged.

Fang Face, the first to receive his tags, looked puzzled at the silvery chain now hooked over his claws. When the Joes showed their tags in turn, though, he made a low chirrupping noise and fumbled with the chain. The hunter's body was just too bulky for him to wear them in the normal fashion, so he settled for looping it through his belt. It shone brightly, almost cheerfully, against the dun-colored skin and rough-scored armor.

Buckingham took his tags silently. He knotted them into his long, tentacle-like dreadlocks, leaving a glint of silver among the gold rings already there.

Black Box paused for a moment. He stared Hawk in the eye, glanced at Scarlett, Jaye and Jinx, then back to Hawk. Then he nodded—a very odd, very human gesture, coming from the massive creature—and took them from Hawk's hand. Hawk saluted, and Black Box touched his forehead, clicking his claws against the mask in some way that must have meant something to his own people.

Then, without another word, the three hunters turned and faded into the mist. Their forms blurred as they activated their strange camouflage, and in seconds, they were completely gone from human sight.

"Well," Tunnel Rat said after a long moment. "That was suitably mysterious."

Lady Jaye elbowed him.


	17. Epilogue

**Author's ****Note:** In which the franchise, in some ways, comes full circle and anonymous reviewer Sakura-bell is proven somewhat prophetic. Also, if at least one person doesn't get the whole Yutani connection, I will be an extremely sad geek.

**Rating:** T.

**Disclaimer: **G.I. Joe is the property of Hasbro, Inc. The Aliens and Predator franchises are property of 20th Century Fox Entertainment. I derive no profit from the use of these characters and concepts, and have received no compensation. Please accept this work in the spirit with which it is offered—as a work of respect and love, not an attempt to claim ownership or earn money from these intellectual properties.

* * *

**Epilogue**

Sergeant Major James Yutani groaned as he opened his eyes. His arm was killing him . . . but that was no surprise, given what he'd been through, and he groaned again as the memories came rushing back. Had he really carried that loudmouth Faraday on his back? While fighting a running battle deep underground? Oh, hell, he wasn't doing _that _again.

"You look awful," a voice said. Yutani's dragging eyelids popped open again. A familiar figure—no, two familiar figures—sat by his bedside. There was his cousin Machiko, looking as impeccable as ever . . . and that old man she was working with, the man with a face like a baleful dog and whose name Yutani could never remember.

"Machi," Yutani managed. His mouth was dry. Machiko smiled and held a glass of water to his lips, which he gulped greedily. The old man didn't say a thing, but he wasn't a glowering colonel or a fang-monster wanting to tear the sergeant major's head off, so Yutani was fine with that. "What're you doing here, Machi?"

"Well, when one of the Yutani family goes MIA, the rest of us get very concerned," Machiko said mock-primly, smoothing her $2,000 skirt over her knees. "It's bad press for the company, you know. One of the family's heirs working for the UN—great, very good, lots of popular appeal. Said heir getting killed—not so great. Especially not now that we're working so closely with other leaders in the field. As soon as your squad went missing, Colonel Folkes kindly contacted the family, and Charles and I flew down here right away."

Great. "Nice to know you care," Yutani coughed. His cousin shook her head and smiled again, ruffling his hair—just like he used to do to her when they were kids. He grunted, but didn't have the strength to shove her off.

"Machiko is always kidding," the old man said with a dry smile. "She was really quite concerned, especially with the stories flying all over the camp."

Yutani blinked, and Machiko pursed her lips. "You know how much I love aliens, cuz."

_Oh, __shit. _Yutani might not have been one of those . . . what d'you call them . . . G.I. Joes, but he knew top-secret, classified-out-the-ass stuff when he barely survived it. "Look, Machi," he managed, sinking further into the pillows, "you have to keep that quiet, okay? I know you have your Area 51 hobbies and all that, but a lot of people say crazy stuff around here when they get scared. It doesn't mean anything."

"Don't worry," Machiko said soothingly. "I'm sure this is just a lot of hysterical rumor. Now, we'd better make sure you get your rest." She stood, smoothing down her skirt again. "I'll be on site, Jim. The family wants me here until we're sure you're going to be fine."

"You don't need to," Yutani assured her. "It looks like you were doing something important before you had to come down here. I mean, I'm sure mister . . ." He blanked on the name. "I'm sorry, mister-?"

The old man stood, extending one hand. "Weyland. Charles Bishop Weyland. Nice to meet you, sergeant major Yutani; I assure you, it was no trouble at all bringing your cousin down here, not when our families and companies' fortunes are so closely connected."

The sergeant major nodded weakly. Something was bothering him. He'd heard that name before, but . . . ? "Nice to meet you, Mr. Weyland."

* * *

And a dozen miles away, a thousand feet above, on the crumbly slope of a mountain in the foothills of the Andes, a single figure toiled. He was lost and alone; his one-time Huntmates would be gone by now, bringing word of his supposed betrayal to the rest of the Blooded and ruining his reputation forever. He hissed behind his mask, sweat beading under it as he picked his way over yet another chunk of rock. Lost, cast out, marooned on an alien world . . . all because of treacherous brothers, dominant Ooman females, and the _setg'-in __pyode __amedha, _Sna kys.

He would survive. He was yautja. He was Blooded.

He was armed.

* * *

**_Fin?_**


End file.
